Juvenile and young offenders: speech, language

1
Juvenile and young offenders speech, language
communication needs

• Professor Karen Bryan
• Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences,
• University of Surrey.

2
Successful feasibility study of SLT for young
people in prisons

• Two year project funded by the Helen Hamlyn Trust
  in partnership with the Prison Service.
• Set up and evaluated a speech and language
  therapy (SLT) service in each establishment.
• Collected data on speech, language and
  communication needs.
• Established that SLT could make a very positive
  contribution to the regimes.

3

• Issues
• Security
• Noise
• Regimes that vary for across establishments
• A language of their own
• A culture that can be alien
• A rule culture and vast amounts of written
  information
• Most interventions to address offending behaviour
  are verbally mediated.

4
Sample of juveniles

• Sample of 58 participants (half of an
  establishment).
• Mean age was 17 (15.2-18.1).
• 2 had ESL (lower than expected).
• 90 left school before 16 and of these 18 were
  not attending at age 12 or younger.
• Entry level literacy 62 did not reach level one
  for literacy, 60 did not reach level one for
  numeracy.

5
Language levels on TOAL-3

• 46-67 of the juveniles are in the poor or very
  poor category.
• A further 20-33 are below average for their age.
  
• See Bryan et al (2007)

6
Why are levels of speech, language and
communication difficulty high?

• Association between speech and language disorders
  and behaviour difficulties is well established
  (Humber and Snow 2001).
• Difficulties in understanding make children very
  vulnerable in relation to education (Hooper et al
  2003).
• Low education and speech and literacy
  difficulties are risk factors for offending
  (Tomblin 2000).
• Over-representation of hearing impaired, learning
  difficulty, mental health problems within the
  prisoner population.
• Where developmental difficulties have not been
  addressed, these contribute to the cycle of
  disadvantage (RCSLT 07).

7
SLT within the regimes

• Referrals included a range of communication
  difficulties.
• SLT focus on enabling the young person with
  communication difficulties to engage in the
  prison regime.
• Access to other inputs eg education by making
  information accessible, and innovative
  developments eg a parenting group and SLT
  training provided for Learning Support
  Assistants.
• SLT bridges education and health.

8
Evidence Base

• We have a very strong evidence base for speech
  and language therapy in relation to both
  developmental and acquired speech and language
  difficulties.
• The recent ICAN report on Social Inclusion also
  provides an evidence base for speech and language
  therapy in relation to preventing and addressing
  social inclusion.

9
Criminal Justice system

• Not just young people who are inside
• Need to consider
• School non-attenders and excluded children
• Adults with pervasive developmental problems
• Children with non-standard educational
  backgrounds eg looked after, traveller children
• Children known to post offending and offender
  prevention services eg probation and YOT teams.

10
Summary

• There is a need for SLT and we can demonstrate
  that SLT works- we have an evidence base and a
  theoretical model.
• Demonstrating a contribution to the wider
  service/regime has been achieved.
• We need to develop a national model for SLT
  provision.

11

• Bryan K, Freer J and Furlong C. (2007) Language
  and communication difficulties in juvenile
  offenders. International Journal of Language and
  Communication Disorders, 42, 505-520.
• Bryan, K. (2004). Prevalence of speech and
  language difficulties in young offenders.
  International Journal of Language and
  Communication Disorders, 39, 391-400.
• Hooper S J, Roberts J E, Zeisel SA, and Poe M.
  (2003). Core language predictors of behavioural
  functioning in early elementary school children
  Concurrent and longitudinal findings. Behavioral
  Disorders, 29(1) 10-21.
• Humber E, and Snow PC. (2001). The language
  processing and production skills of juvenile
  offenders A pilot investigation. Psychiatry,
  Psychology and Law 8, 1-11.
• ICAN (2007) language and Social Exclusion.
• RCSLT (2007) Speaking Out young offenders with
  communication difficulties. London RCSLT.