Oral language competence and restorative justice processes: refining preparation and the measurement of conference outcomes

Restorative justice conferencing for young offenders is a legislated response to youth offending, which has been in place in all Australian states and territories for nearly two decades. Restorative justice conferences are meetings between young offenders, their victims and supporters to discuss the offence, its impact and what the young person can do to repair harms caused by the offending behaviour. There is now a substantial body of research that has examined the impact restorative justice processes have on participants (eg how young offenders and victims judge the process). Results are largely positive, showing that participants view restorative justice processes as fair and they are satisfied with outcomes. Given the highly conversational nature of restorative justice conferencing processes however, this paper reviews research on oral language competence and youth offending. It raises questions about the need to refine preparatory work with young offenders and victims, to better understand young offenders’ capacities to effectively communicate in conference processes. It suggests that improved preparation (where language impairments in young offenders are identified and addressed) will lead to better outcomes for young offenders and victims

Language Skills in Incarcerated Young Offenders: Links with Offending Severity

Oral language competence (i.e. skills with verbal expression and auditory comprehension) underpins and emerges out of, early social-emotional relationships, and forms the basis of the transition to literacy in early childhood. Some outcomes of suboptimal language development in the early years include difficulties forming and maintaining interpersonal relationships, and identifying and understanding affective states of others. This paper presents findings from a study of 100 incarcerated young male offenders in Victoria, Australia. We sought to determine the prevalence of language impairment in this very high-risk group, and also examined correlates of language impairment that could act as early intervention levers, e.g., early engagement with Child Protection Services. A particular focus of this study was the examination of associations between language impairment and the nature and severity of the young person\u27s offending history (most notably a history of convictions for interpersonal violence). Selected language measures (Clinical Examination of Language Fundamentals – 4th edition; Test of Language Competence – Expanded Edition) were administered, together with a measure of nonverbal IQ (the matrices subtest of the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test – 2nd Edition) and a measure of mental health functioning (the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale). In addition, the Cormier-Lang Crime Index was used to quantify offending histories along two dimensions – violent and nonviolent. The mean age of the sample was 19.31 years (SD=.85), and they had completed an average of 9.8 years of formal education (SD=1.7). Using published norms on the tests employed, and a stringent cut-off of suboptimal performance on two standardised language measures, 46% were classified as language impaired (LI), and this was not accounted for by low IQ. Of the 26 participants with very high (\u3e75th percentile) CLCI Violence scores, 18 (69.2%) were in the LI group. LI also aggregated strongly with a history of Out of Home Care Placement, with 62% who had been removed from their homes due to maltreatment being identified as having a LI. Findings will be discussed with respect to (i) early intervention implications for boys who display both language-learning and behaviour difficulties in the early school years, (ii) forensic interviewing, (iii) restorative conferencing and (iv) psychological counselling. 1In Victoria, Australia, young people aged 18-21 may be sentenced in the Youth Justice system, in an effort to delay/prevent their entry into Adult Correction

What`s the story? An exploration of narrative language abilities in male juvenile offenders

This paper is concerned with the narrative language (story telling) abilities of a group of juvenile offenders completing community-based court orders in Melbourne, Australia. A convenience sample of 30 male young offenders was compared with 50 male non-offenders attending government high schools in the same region of Melbourne. Participants provided an audiotaped description of a six-frame cartoon (the &ldquo;Flowerpot Incident&rdquo;). Samples were transcribed and subjected to story grammar analysis, to examine differences between groups regarding both structural and qualitative adequacy. Young offenders produced narratives which were significantly poorer than those of controls with respect to the presence and adequacy of the seven story grammar elements described by Stein and Glenn (In R. O. Freedle (Ed.), New Directions in Discourse Processing (pp. 53-120) 1979). Findings are discussed in relation to implications for investigative and evidentiary interviewing.<br /

Youth (in)justice : oral language competence in early life and risk for engagement in antisocial behaviour in adolescence

Youth offenders are complex and challenging for policymakers and practitioners alike and face high risks for long-term disadvantage and social marginalisation. In many cases, this marginalisation from the mainstream begins in early life, particularly in the classroom, where they have difficulty both with language/literacy tasks and with the interpersonal demands of the classroom. Underlying both sets of skills is oral language competence&mdash;the ability to use and understand spoken language in a range of situations and social exchanges, in order to successfully negotiate the business of everyday life. This paper highlights an emerging field of research that focuses specifically on the oral language skills of high-risk young people. It presents evidence from Australia and overseas that demonstrates that high proportions (some 50% in Australian studies) of young offenders have a clinically significant, but previously undetected, oral language disorder. The evidence presented in this paper raises important questions about how young offenders engage in forensic interviews, whether as suspects, victims or witnesses. The delivery of highly verbally mediated interventions such as counselling and restorative justice conferencing is also considered in the light of emerging international evidence on this topic.<br /

Mechanism for Multiple Ligand Recognition by the Human Transferrin Receptor

Transferrin receptor 1 (TfR) plays a critical role in cellular iron import for most higher organisms. Cell surface TfR binds to circulating iron-loaded transferrin (Fe-Tf) and transports it to acidic endosomes, where low pH promotes iron to dissociate from transferrin (Tf) in a TfR-assisted process. The iron-free form of Tf (apo-Tf) remains bound to TfR and is recycled to the cell surface, where the complex dissociates upon exposure to the slightly basic pH of the blood. Fe-Tf competes for binding to TfR with HFE, the protein mutated in the iron-overload disease hereditary hemochromatosis. We used a quantitative surface plasmon resonance assay to determine the binding affinities of an extensive set of site-directed TfR mutants to HFE and Fe-Tf at pH 7.4 and to apo-Tf at pH 6.3. These results confirm the previous finding that Fe-Tf and HFE compete for the receptor by binding to an overlapping site on the TfR helical domain. Spatially distant mutations in the TfR protease-like domain affect binding of Fe-Tf, but not iron-loaded Tf C-lobe, apo-Tf, or HFE, and mutations at the edge of the TfR helical domain affect binding of apo-Tf, but not Fe-Tf or HFE. The binding data presented here reveal the binding footprints on TfR for Fe-Tf and apo-Tf. These data support a model in which the Tf C-lobe contacts the TfR helical domain and the Tf N-lobe contacts the base of the TfR protease-like domain. The differential effects of some TfR mutations on binding to Fe-Tf and apo-Tf suggest differences in the contact points between TfR and the two forms of Tf that could be caused by pH-dependent conformational changes in Tf, TfR, or both. From these data, we propose a structure-based model for the mechanism of TfR-assisted iron release from Fe-Tf

The role of families in preventing alcohol-related harm among young people

The misuse of alcohol in adolescence is linked to increased risk of alcohol dependence and other social and health inequalities in adulthood and drinking habits in adolescence are predictive of regular drinking in later life. One of the key influences on young people is the context of the family and the relationship between the young person and their family, particularly their parent(s) or carer(s). Within a strong supportive relationship, parents who role model low-risk alcohol use, and disapprove of and delay the onset of their children\u27s drinking, reduce the likelihood of alcohol misuse by young people. Health professionals and those in other fields (such as education, welfare, alcohol and other drug, youth and parenting) have an important role in supporting families and carers concerned about these issues. The provision of resources, guidance and appropriate referrals can help parents focus on factors that reduce the likelihood of young people engaging in risk-taking behaviour, thereby preventing and minimising alcohol-related harms among this age group

Australian Early Childhood Teachers’ Training in Language and Literacy: A Nation-Wide Review of Pre-Service Course Content

Early childhood teachers are well-positioned to maximise preschoolers’ development in oral language and emergent literacy; both of which are vital predictors of academic success at school. Research investigating their pre-service training in language and emergent literacy remains limited. This issue is addressed in the present study, with the first nation-wide review of the oral language and emergent literacy course content across all 84 Australian early childhood teacher pre-service courses. Qualitative Content Analysis was employed to gain an overview of language and emergent literacy teaching content reported in publicly available course documents. Study findings demonstrated large variation in the oral language and emergent literacy course content reported. The results showed that course content on the structure of language and code-related skills including phonological awareness and concepts of print, do not feature prominently across pre-service course documents. Further, course content on evidence-based strategies to foster children’s oral language and emergent literacy development, such as dialogic book reading, and intentional adult-child interactions were also limited. Findings are discussed with respect to their implications for preparing early childhood teachers to support the oral language and emergent literacy growth of preschooler

Getting the story from child witnesses : exploring the application of a story grammar framework

Investigative interviews with children about alleged abuse were analysed to determine the degree to which the child\u27s responses adhered to a story grammar framework, and whether the presence of story grammar elements was associated with interviewers\u27 adherence to best-practice (i.e. open-ended) questioning. The sample included 51 interviews with child witnesses from across Australia. The interviews were administered by a police officer with children (37 girls and 14 boys) aged 3-16 years (M age = 103.82 months, SD = 34.21 months). The interviewers\u27 questions were categorised as open-ended or specific and the children\u27s responses were classified as a story grammar element, context/background information, or \u27don\u27t know\u27 responses. The majority of interviewer questions were specific in nature and the majority of children\u27s responses were context/background details. Open-ended questions were more successful in eliciting story grammar from children. Of the story grammar elements, the interviewers\u27 specific questions usually targeted setting and attempt details. These findings suggest that improvement in the narrative coherence of children\u27s reports of abusive events can potentially be achieved by increasing interviewers\u27 use of open-ended questions.<br /

Elementary teachers\u27 perspectives on teaching reading comprehension

PURPOSE: We report findings from a survey of elementary teachers regarding reading instruction. The purpose was to examine teachers\u27 beliefs about how children in the first 7 years of schooling develop reading comprehension skills and to characterize the self-reported practices and strategies they use to support children to comprehend connected text. METHOD: A web-based survey was used to collect data from 284 Australian elementary teachers about their beliefs and practices regarding reading comprehension instruction. Selected Likert-scale items were aggregated to determine the degree to which participants held child-centered or content-centered views of reading instruction. RESULTS: Australian elementary school teachers hold a wide range of beliefs about reading instruction, some of which are in direct opposition to each other. Our findings indicate low consensus about what elements of instructional practice are useful in classrooms or how time should be apportioned to different tasks. Commercial programs had significant penetration in schools, and many participants reported using multiple commercial programs, with varying degrees of pedagogical harmony. Participants indicated that their most common source of knowledge about reading instruction was their own personal research, with few nominating university teacher education as a primary source of knowledge or expertise. CONCLUSIONS: Little agreement exists within the Australian elementary teacher community regarding the ways that reading skills can and should be taught. There is significant room for teacher practice to have improved theoretical underpinnings and to develop a consistent repertoire of classroom practices aligned with these