Gender Sensitive Factors in Girls Delinquency

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Gender Sensitive Factors in Girls Delinquency
Donna-Marie Winn, Ph.D. Duke University Center
for Child and Family Policy Psychology, Social
and Health Sciences Gayle Dakof,
Ph.D. University of Miami Department of
Epidemiology Public Health
Diana Fishbein, Ph.D. Research Triangle Institute
Transdisciplinary Behavioral Science
Program Shari Miller-Johnson, Ph.D. Duke
University Center for Child and Family
Policy Sanford Institute
Support for this presentation comes from the
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention (OJJDP) and the National Institute of
Mental Health (NIMH)
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Research on Girls

• Scarce most delinquency studies focus on boys
• Correlates appear to be similar
• Not clear if the risk factors affect girls
  similarly
• Or risk factors may exert a similar influence but
  occur disproportionately
• Interpersonal and familial relationships may more
  profoundly influence girls behavior
• Even less research that accounts for ethnic
  differences between sexes

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Sample Characteristics

• Adjudicated and Clinical Samples
• Concentrated with high risk girls
• Biases and differential referral processes
• Various segments of the CJS will differ due to
  system biases
• Best information for designing treatment
  strategies
• Community samples
• Indicative of general risk and protective factors
• Highlights ways in which different outcomes can
  emerge from similar influences
• Best information for designing prevention
  strategies

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Gender Specificity ? Sensitivity

• Specific only specific to one gender
  (Menstruation)
• Sensitive present in both genders, but more
  prevalent or functions differently
• Biological functions (testosterone)
• Psychological traits (depression, CD)
• Need to understand normal physical and
  psychosocial development of each gender
• Need to account for how development affects
  delinquent outcomes

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Short Story!

• Biology (aspects of genetics, brain development
  and function) affects behaviors
• Chronic stress increases risk for bad outcomes by
  negatively affecting brain development
• Once stressed, the individual is more sensitive
  to environmental triggers
• Early high risk behaviors are malleable

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Brain Development Prefrontal Cortex

• If the prefrontal area does not develop
  appropriately
• Hard time understanding social situations and
  social cues
• Why I always got to wait!!
• Sees many situations and people as out to get
  them or hostile
• He dissed me!!!
• Gets mad easily
• He meant to step on my shoe,
• so I punched him!
• Is impulsive and inattentive
• Plays video games all day,
• but cant focus in class
• Seems insensitive to consequences
• Like I care!!
• Heightened sensivity to reward in
• spite of consequences
• Drug abuse

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Brain Development Emotional Regulation

• Limbic system is regulated by prefrontal cortex
• If the Limbic System is not adequate
  communicating with the Prefrontal Cortex
• Difficulty getting motivated
• Hard time regulating emotions
• Response to stress is
• dysregulated
• Decreased sensation leads
• to seeking highs (drugs)
• Poor self regulation

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Causes of Disconnect between Prefrontal Cortex
and the Limbic System

• Genetic defects
• Developmental delays
• Injury
• Metabolic errors
• Stress

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Chronic stress primes the brain for risk
behaviors and drug abuse
Alters brain function, disengages coping
mechanisms, and compromises ability to execute
rational choices

• Increases the likelihood of psychopathology
  depression, drug abuse violence
• Genetic vulnerabilities affect particular
  behavioral outcomes of stress
• Positive attributes of individual or environment
  is protective.

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The Adolescent Brain

• Particularly vulnerable to environmental inputs,
  including stress and drug effects
• Effects are longstanding
• Prefrontal cortex not fully developed until early
  adulthood
• Unique stage of change in metabolism, pruning,
  and increased efficiency in prefrontal function
• Emotional centers (limbic) without checks and
  balances
• Greater sensitivity to rewards, less inhibition
• Seek altered states of consciousness

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Fundamental Imbalance in Puberty

• Rapid physical, endocrine, and social changes
  that create early affective motivations and
  challenges
• Gradual, later development of affect regulation
  and maturation of cognitive/self-control skills

• Cognitive Capacity
• Planning logic reasoning, inhibitory control
  problem-solving skills capacity for
  understanding long-term consequences of behavior

Emotional Capacity Pubertal drives and emotions
sensation seeking risk taking sensitivity to
rewards, low self control
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Adolescent Girls Disadvantages

• Greater sensitivity to stressors, particularly
  familial
• Greater incidence of sexual abuse, dysfunctional
  familial relationships, maltreatment and other
  stressors among antisocial females relative to
  males
• Proneness to psychological and psychiatric
  illnesses e.g., depression and anxiety
• Differences in development of amygdala and
  hippocampus heighten stress sensitivity
• Adrenal gland sensitivity negatively alters mood
• Estrogen amplifies stress responses, increasing
  mood disturbances
• Perception of greater stress than males

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Girls Advantages

• Larger Prefrontal Cortex ? less acting out
  behaviors
• Advanced language and verbal skills
• More effective processing of social and emotional
  cues
• Female hormones protect against neurocognitive
  damage from stress
• Tend and Befriend, rather than Fight and
  Flight due to hormonal differences

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ADHD and Conduct Disorders

• Developmental delays Males outnumber females by
  a 31 ratio
• Boys more hyperactive, girls more inattentive and
  less externalizing
• Presence of CD substantially compounds outcome
  severity and early onset more similar to boys
• Boys more prone to both in response to stress
  than girls
• ADHD more persistent in girls, although less
  severe in community samples
• Family violence is related to ADHD in girls and
  predicts psychological and cognitive deficits

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Programmatic Implications

• Need more research Studies of ADHD in girls are
  sorely lacking
• Need greater sensitivity among professionals to
  the clinical features of ADHD in girls.
• Need greater clinical referrals and treatment,
  even when symptoms are not externalizing
• Need timely and comprehensive screening of ADHD
  (and other mental health concerns) in order to
  adequately address treatment needs for delinquent
  girls

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Basic Intelligence

• Both boys and girls with lower IQs tend to be
  more delinquent
• Other factors that affect the link between IQ and
  delinquency
• Low Self esteem
• Poor School attitudes and performance
• Poor reaction of school staff towards girls
  (perceived)
• Negative family influences
• Deficits in abstract thinking interact with early
  pubertal maturation to increase risk for
  delinquency

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Programmatic Implications

• Need assessments for targeted educational and
  vocational special needs programs
• Need cognitive therapies with a language base
• Need to better understand links between IQ and
  early puberty

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Cognitive and Emotional Regulatory Deficits

• Hot and Cool Cognition
• Cool strictly cognitive processing of abstract
  and decontextualizing problems
• Hot regulation of affect and motivation in
  performing a task or solving a problem
• Prefrontal-Limbic Circuitry develops in early
  adulthood
• Girls develop this circuitry later than boys due
  to female hormones
• Girls have larger and more active PFC so can
  suppress externalizing behaviors but not
  internalizing
• Sources of delays genetics, prenatal conditions,
  adversity, puberty and substance abuse

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Programmatic Implications

• Programs to reduce child maltreatment
• Treatment for deficits resulting from substance
  misuse
• Parenting and family support programs to enhance
  cognitive reinforcements and bonding at home
• Programs to reduce maternal smoking
• School preparation programs for disadvantaged
  girls with cognitive and intellectual deficits
• Targeted remediation services in home and school
• Harm reduction approach during adolescence
• Alternative activities

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Early Pubertal Maturation

• Both biologically and socially challenging
• Disconnect between brain and body readiness
• Early hormone release increases neural excitation
• Stress profoundly influences early puberty
• Absence of biological father and familial
  instability
• Strongly related to disruptive behavior
  disorders, antisocial personality traits, and
  delinquency
• Affiliation with older boys
• Exposure to intimate partner violence
• More often sexually abused in the home
• Good parenting may mitigate negative effects
• Intimately interacts with psychological disorders

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Programmatic Implications

• Family therapy and educational supports for
  families of divorce and entry of new male
  household figure
• Stress reduction programs under conditions of
  adversity or disadvantage
• Domestic violence and child abuse prevention
  programs
• Psychological and cognitive supports during early
  puberty for both child and caregivers
• Weight control

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Mental Health Issues

• Greater incidence of internalizing disorders
• Less related to delinquency than externalizing
  disorders
• Depression and anxiety more prevalent, tho, in JJ
  girls
• Also more CD, ODD and SA than in community
• Over ¾ in JJ system with one or more disorders
• Predominantly untreated
• Rates of depression similar b/t sexes until
  puberty
• Co-occurring ECF emotional regulation deficits
• Relationship with early puberty
• Triggered by stress e.g., higher rates of PTSD
• Strong familial attachments may be protective

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Programmatic Implications

• Comprehensive psychological assessment and
  appropriate treatment, as indicated
• Comprehensive psychological assessment and
  appropriate treatment, as indicated
• Comprehensive psychological assessment and
  appropriate treatment, as indicated
• Comprehensive psychological assessment and
  appropriate treatment, as indicated

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Remaining Research Questions

• How can we use information about girls brain
  development and function to improve outcomes?
• How might manipulations of the environment
  improve brain function and development?
• How can we use their advantages to increase
  resiliency (e.g. talkative, less acting out, and
  read social cues better)?
• What are the critical stages of development
  during which psychosocial conditions (e.g.,
  stress) differentially exerts its effects on
  girls relative to boys?
• Can understanding brain-environment interactions
  help design interventions that impact at critical
  points in the developmental trajectory to alter
  risk status for girls?