Monitor on Psychology - December 2011 - (Page 71)

partnership among the university, the county Juvenile Court and community members, including police and judges. The students continue to partner with the young offenders, and the rest of the team works together to help the young people achieve positive goals and steer clear of crime. The program has strong research backing. A 2006 article by Marisa L. Sturza and Davidson in the Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community reports that for youth in the program, overall crime rates over a 30-month follow-up were consistently half of those randomly assigned to no treatment or to treatment-as-usual control conditions. And the program costs about a fifth as much as usual court processing, Davidson says. Undergraduate students also benefit from participating in the program, finds a 2010 study in the American Journal of Community Psychology. Compared with matched peers, they’re more likely to go on to graduate school, choose human service careers, see themselves positively and have better attitudes toward youth. “It’s a very positive educational tool,” Davidson says. A family-centered approach Psychologist Stephen Gavazzi, PhD, a family therapist and professor at The Ohio State University, has developed a diversion program that addresses what he perceives as key limitations in many such programs: a lack of family involvement in treatment and an over-emphasis on problem behaviors. He’s developed versions of the program tailored to status offenders, young people who have committed misdemeanors or lower-level felony offenses, and higher-level felony offenders. Drawing from a primary prevention program he developed A tailored approach for autistic youth? High-functioning teens with autism may be difficult to spot because they don’t display typical behaviors, such as rocking and hand waving, and their language skills may be adequate. Because the features of autism are less obvious among these youth, a disproportionate number land in juvenile detention for behaviors such as obsessive following or touching others, says school psychologist tammy L. Hughes, PhD, who chairs Duquesne University’s department of counseling, psychology and special education. But the nature of their developmental disorder makes it imperative that they be treated in a way that recognizes their unique issues, preferably through well-designed diversion programs, she says. “not many young people with autism commit crimes, but of that small group, their needs are distinct,” she says. the issue came to Hughes’s attention when her colleague Lawrence Sutton, PhD, a clinical psychologist who works for the state of Pennsylvania, observed that 43 percent of the young people in a juvenile sex-offense unit met criteria for autism. After taking a closer look, the psychologists also found that these young people weren’t improving under traditional treatment approaches for sexual offenses. For example, the standard treatment for juvenile sex offenders places a strong emphasis on learning to empathize with the victim’s point of view, as well as on putting young people into group formats that aid their socialization. “But kids with autism have a lot of difficulty understanding another’s perspective,” Hughes says. Many also find traditional group therapy confusing and therefore ineffective. their motives are also different from those of typical sex-offending youth, says Hughes. For instance, they may come up to someone and smell and touch their shiny hair because of sensorystimulation needs combined with poor social skills, “not because they’re lying in wait to commit an assault,” she says. Several efforts are under way to address the courts’ and public’s lack of knowledge on this issue. Hughes and Sutton are working to set up screening and treatment mechanisms for youth who are already in detention. they have also developed a diagnostic protocol to help courts determine the treatment needs of high-functioning children with autism, as well as prevention and intervention programs to help these young people understand sexual development, peer relationships and dating. In addition, Hughes and others are training juvenile justice workers to appropriately assess and intervene with autistic youth. “We’d like to have a system in place where we can catch problems in these young people early on and solve them,” Hughes says, “and if we have to go before a judge, the judge is already informed about their needs.” —t. DeANGEliS DeceMber 2011 • Monitor on psychology 71

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Monitor on Psychology - December 2011

Monitor on Psychology - December 2011
Letters
President’s Column
Contents
From the CEO
Willpower Pioneer Wins $100,000 Grawemeyer Prize
Single-Sex Schooling Called Into Question by Prominent Researchers
Maternal Depression Stunts Childhood Growth, Research Suggests
For Boys, Sharing May Seem Like a Waste of Time
Good News for Postdoc Applicants
In Brief
Treatment Guideline Development Now Under Way
Government Relations Update
Psychologist Named Va Mental Health Chief
The Limits of Eyewitness Testimony
Judicial Notebook
Random Sample
Time Capsule
Deconstructing Suicide
Questionnaire
A Focus on Interdisciplinarity
A Time of ‘Enormous Change’
The Science Behind Team Science
Good Science Requires Good Conflict
A New Paradigm of Care
Speaking of Education
Science Directions
New Labels, New Attitudes?
Psychologist Profile
Early Career Psychology
Unintended Consequences
Better Options for Troubled Teens
Saving Lives, One Organ at a Time
New Journal Editors
APA News
Division Spotlight
Guidelines for the Conduct of President-Elect Nominations and Elections
American Psychological Foundation
Personalities

Monitor on Psychology - December 2011