The IMPACT OF MUSIC EDUCATION ON A CHILDSGROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT Article PDF Available with 5028 Reads Cite this publication David Teachout 703 University of North Carolina at Greensboro Abstract The purpose of this chapter is to present a review of the research pertaining to the impact of music education on several aspects of a childs growth and development The topics to be explored include perception and cognition motor development emotional development social development atrisk students and special needs students The research cited was found by searching Dissertations Online ERIC Music Index RILM PsycINFO Social Sciences Index and the two handbooks of music teaching research Colwell 1992 Colwell Richardson 2002 Due to the space limitations of this document the research cited in each topic area is a representative sample of Discover the worlds research 15 million members 118 million publications 700k research projects Download fulltext PDF Content uploaded by David Teachout Author content 3 The IMPACT OF MUSIC EDUCATION ON A CHILDSGROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT David J Teachout The University of North Carolina at Greensboro The purpose of this chapter is to present a review of the research pertaining to the impact of music education on several aspects of a childs growth and development The topics to be explored include perception and cognition motor development emotional development social development atrisk students and special needs students The research cited was found by searching Dissertations Online ERIC Music Index RILM PsycINFO Social Sciences Index and the two handbooks of music teaching research Colwell 1992 Colwell Richardson 2002 Due to the space limitations of this document the research cited in each topic area is a representative sample of the ideas found rather than a presentation of all existing research Some topics have been studied less extensively over the years than the others and as noted are in need of continued research to be able to make specific recommendations for policymakers I will summarize the findings and will identify areas in need of future research PERCEPTION AND COGNITION In this section I will approach the topic of perception and cognition from two discrete perspectives a the impact of music listening and b the impact of music instruction Schellenberg 2001 2003 argues that each activity listening vs taking instruction has a unique impact on perceptual and cognitive function I would add that as such the implications for research practitioners and policy makers would also be distinctly different Childs Growth Development 32 Music Listening Infants The first indications of a response to musical stimuli occur in the last three months of pregnancy During this period the auditory cortex and neurons of a fetus have stabilized and are functioning Lecanuet 1996 Moore Vareyar Fulford Tyler Gribben Baker James Growland 2001 Researchers have found clear evidence of fetal responses to musical stimuli Abrams Griffith Huang 1998 Blum 1998 Staley Iragui Spitz 1990 Furthermore it is thought that musical sounds introduced in utero after the auditory cortex has developed can affect subsequent infant behavior Olds 1985 OConnell 2003 found that infants who were exposed to a music timbre prenatally were able to discriminate as measured by heart rate between their prenatal timbre and other similar timbres through one week of age postnatally In an experiment examining infants born prematurely Lynch Short and Chua 1995 found that experience affected musical processing in infancy Similarly in a study of premature babies in intensive care environments Lorch Lorch Deifendor and Early 1994 found that infants responded with differential changes in vital functions including heart rate blood pressure and respiration when listening to recordings of contrasting musical styles The results of studies with infants at varying points within the first twelve months provide much supportive evidence for the existence of sophisticated musical functioning Trainor Tsang and Cheung 2002 found that two and fourmonthold infants preferred consonant rather than dissonant intervals Further the researchers found it difficult to recapture subjects interest after a series of dissonant interval trials They concluded that consonance perception could provide a means of learning the pitch structure of the musical system to which an infant may be exposed Childs Growth Development 33 Hannon and Johnson 2005 employed a habituation strategy to examine whether seven monthold infants could categorize rhythmic and melodic patterns on the basis of the underlying meter Infants presented with metrical melodies detected reversals of pitch and meter while infants presented with nonmetrical melodies expressed no preference The researchers concluded that infants can infer meter from rhythmic patterns and that they can use this metrical structure to secure their knowledge acquisition in music learning Ilari 2004 investigated infants preferences and longterm memory for two contrasting complex pieces of music Eightandahalfmontholds were found to distinguish the two pieces in orchestra timbre and could discriminate between the piano and the orchestra timbres Ilari concluded that contrary to the belief that infants are ill equipped to process complex music infants could encode and remember complex pieces of music for at least two weeks Saffran Loman and Robertson 2000 found that infant subjects retained familiarized music in longterm memory The infants listening preferences were affected by the extent to which familiar passages were removed from the musical contexts within which they were originally learned Schmidt Trainor Santesso 2003 examined EEG and heart rate responses to affective musical stimuli development of infants at the third sixth ninth and twelfth month The distribution of EEG power was found to change across age Younger subjects demonstrated no difference in activity between two specific regions of the brain while older subjects exhibited relatively more activation in one region than the other This likely reflects the normal maturation of frontal lobe function Further when compared with a baseline the presentation of emotionallyexpressive music significantly increased brain activity at the third month had little effect at the sixth and ninth month and significantly lessened brain activity at the twelfth month Childs Growth Development 34 The researchers concluded that there was a distinct developmental effect of music on brain activity in the first year with music having a calming influence on infants by the end of the first year of life The array of musical responses demonstrated by infants in the first year of life is considered to be more a reflection of innate capabilities made available through normal brain development than through learning Imberty 2000 Trehub 2000 Further research is needed to determine whether or not there exists a point after the first year at which music learning begins to support and possibly enhance natural brain development to result in enhanced musical capabilities Similarly it is important to examine whether there exists critical periods during which particular types of exposure must occur for future musical development to take place Music and Memory Music originally associated with specific information has been found to significantly improve the recall of that information Balch Bowman Mohler 1992 Boltz Schulkind Kantra 1991 Wallace 1994 However this effect can be explained easily by stimulus generalization a fundamental tenet of psychological theory that concerns the transfer of a response learned to one stimulus to a similar stimulus Research is needed that includes comparisons with other nonmusic stimuli to determine whether a musicdependent effect can be retained The Mozart Effect 1 Since 1993 when Raucher Shaw and Ky 1993 published their initial findings linking an improvement in IQ after listening to 10 minutes of classical music the music education profession has had to wrestle with a phenomenon labeled the Mozart Effect The notoriety created by associating a simple passive musiclistening task to such a highly coveted result as Childs Growth Development 35 improved intelligence is something with which the music education community has not been entirely comfortable This is true for several reasons First valuing music education for its collateral benefits is considered to be a questionable philosophical foundation Duke 2000 Reimer 1999 Second the effect has been difficult to replicate consistently In the body of research that employed spatialtemporal reasoning as a dependent variable the specific IQ subtest found by Rauscher et al 1993 to be linked to music listening some researchers found significant positive results supporting the effect Rideout Dougherty Wernert 1998 Rideout Laubach 1996 Rideout Taylor 1997 while others did not Carstens Huskins Houshell 1995 Chabris 1999 Steele Bass Crook 1999 Steele Brown Stoecker 1999 Steele Della Bella Peretz Dunlop Dawe Humphrey Shannon Kirby Olmstead 1999 Further when examining alternative measures of IQ such as working memory Steele Ball Runk 1997 or abstract reasoning Newman Rosenbach Burns Laitmer 1995 Stough Kerkin Bates Mangan 1994 no support was found for the effect Some resolution to the questions surrounding the Mozart Effect may be found in a series of studies that were systematically conducted to uncover understanding about the underlying mechanisms driving the effect The effect was found not to be limited to the music of Mozart Jackson Tlauka 2004 nor even to music in general Nantais Schellenberg 1999 Rather spatial ability was consistently found to be a consequence of subjects emotional states specifically higher arousal levels and positive moods being associated with improved spatial ability Husain Thompson Schellenberg 2002 Thompson Schellenberg Husain 2001 Further this arousal and mood effect could be generalized to nonspatial ability measures of IQ as well as to measures of creative ability Schellenberg Nakata Hunter Tamoto in press In short music has been found to affect IQ creative ability and other cognitive functions but only Childs Growth Development 36 to the extent that it does so by affecting arousal and mood In essence consistent supportive evidence has been found for an arousal and mood effect rather than for a Mozart Effect per se Musical Training Evidence from Neuroscience Brain Research There are a growing number of studies that have used electroencephalogram EEG functional magnetic resonance imaging fMRI and to a lesser extent positron emission tomography PET to track brain activity in children in an effort to uncover connections between such activity and music learning experiences Music is a widelydistributed system in the brain with various musical tasks processed differentially in the hemispheres In general the left hemisphere tends to be more sensitive to pitch processing eg melody and the right to temporal processing eg rhythm there are some indications that these hemispheric specializations may develop with age Overy Norton Cronin Gaab Alsop Winner Schlaug 2004 Further exposure to different styles of music produces varying types of brain activity in children Flohr Miller 1995 Altenmüller Gruhn Parlitz and Kahrs 1996 found that a five week period of musical training compared to other types of instruction produced unique cortical brain activation patterns Flohr Persellin and Miller 1996 found EEG activity differences in children receiving music instruction compared with those receiving nonmusic instruction Similarly when comparing three distinct types of notation used to represent music musical verbal and numerical Schon Anton Roth Besson 2002 found that reading musical notation produced activity in unique regions of the brain indicating that the visuomotor transcoding pathways used for reading musical notation may differ from those used with reading verbal or numerical notation Childs Growth Development 37 Evidence from Operational Indicators of Intelligence A larger number of studies have used various operational indicators of intelligence to examine the connection between music learning and cognitive development Music instruction is positively associated with a number of cognitive functions including spatialtemporal abilities Hetland 2000 visualmotor integration Orsmond Miller 1999 selective attention Hurwitz Wolff Bortnick Kokas 1975 memory for verbal stimuli Chan Ho Cheung 1998 Ho Cheung Chan 2003 Jakobson Cuddy Kilgour 2003 Kilgour Jakobson Cuddy 2000 reading ability Butzlaff 2000 and mathematical skills Vaughn 2000 In the effort to venture beyond correlational research and explore a causal connection between music instruction and various relevant independent variables several researchers have employed a random subject assignment to various music and nonmusic instruction treatments to insure that extraneous variables socioeconomic background involvement in other extra curricular activities etc would not affect the results When using a randomized sample with an experimental design Lu 1986 found no significant effect of music instruction on the reading ability of firstgrade students In contrast several researchers have found a causal influence of music instruction on spatial ability using random subjectassignment procedures Gromko Poorman 1998 Rauscher 2002 Rauscher Zupan 2000 However their results could not support the notion that the influence of music instruction is unique among other types of instruction or that the influence would be not found with other more general indicators of intelligence because these issues were not examined In a more recent study Schellenberg 2004 sought to examine the unique effect of music instruction on a global indicator of intelligence by comparing the effects of music instruction drama instruction and no instruction on intelligence as measured by the entire Wechsler Childs Growth Development 38 Intelligence Scale for Children Third Edition Weschler 1991 The Weschler test is comprised of four indices verbal comprehension perceptual organization processing speed and freedom from distractibility that are combined to provide an overall IQ score Compared to the drama group and the no instruction control group the music subjects produced greater increases on all four indices These findings support the notion that music instruction when compared to drama instruction or no instruction has a unique positive influence on intellectual growth as measured by a global indicator that included dimensions other than spatial ability Further research is needed to examine the effects of music instruction on additional global indicators of intelligence There is also a need to continue comparing music instruction with other types of instruction to determine the degree to which music is unique in this regard Assimilating Evidence from Brain Research and Operational Indicators of Intelligence When reviewing brain research using EEG and other neuroscientific tools it is clear that musical experiences and music instruction produce specific and predictable patterns of activity in the brain What is not so clear is the exact meaning of those predictable patterns of brain activity regarding cognitive function Conversely there is substantial correlation evidence linking music instruction to improved performance on a number of operational indicators of cognitive function Further researchers are beginning to establish causal connections between music instruction and improved performance on some of those operational indicators The challenge to this line of research is that operational indicators no matter how reliable constitute indirect measures of a phenomenon Perhaps the next logical step in exploring the effect of music instruction on cognitive function might be to combine the use of neuroscientific tools and operational indicators to determine whether predictable and directly observable patterns of brain activity can be associated with specific cognitive abilities In fact such a study is now underway Schlaug Childs Growth Development 39 Norton Overy Cronin Lee Winner 2004 Beginning instrumentalists are undergoing brain scans during the first three years of study along with taking a battery of cognitive assessments Ideally this study will provide critical information concerning the effects of music instruction on brain and cognitive development More research is needed that combines the use of neuroscientific tools and operational indicators to explore the effects of music learning effects of music learning on cognitive and perceptual development with a variety of population demographics age area of study experience etc MOTOR DEVELOPMENT Many researchers have examined how motor skill development affects music learning Campbell 1991 Sidnell 1986 Synder 1988 Turner 1998 and performance especially that of conductors Kun 2004 Neiman 1989 Neidlinger 2003 and pianists Ragert Schmidt Altenmüller Dinse 2004 Waters 1992 PhillipsSilver and Trainor 2005 found that even healthy sevenmonthold infants learned to distinguish between duple and triple meter with the aid of accompanying bouncing movements significantly more accurately than with a passive listening treatment Far fewer have examined how musical stimuli and musical learning impact motor development Although the two approaches seem to be inextricably intertwined it is the expressed purpose of this section to feature the latter The small amount of existing research concerning the impact of music education on motor development uses subjects grouped in the following categories a early childhood and preschool and b schoolaged children Early Childhood and Preschool Gruhn 2002 conducted a longitudinal study that was designed to examine the phases and stages in childrens early music learning A group of 12 children six male six female aged one Childs Growth Development 310 to two years was recruited from an urban upper middle class area in Freiburg Germany and observed with respect to their musical behavior in a stimulating musical setting for 15 months This group was compared with a control group aged onetwo years N 9 three male six female from a local nursery school All children were videotaped and then evaluated by two independent judges using a criterionbased observation form with ratings for the categories attention movement and vocalization imitation improvisation audiation Although children in both groups displayed a similar developmental level at the start of the study differences between the two groups became evident throughout the observation period The control group which was exposed to no particular music except the songs of the daycare program developed body movement and vocal performance at a significantly lower level than their counterparts The most significant effect within the experimental group was a strong interaction between flow of movement and motor coordination and vocalization of tonal and rhythm patterns Gilbert 1980 designed the Motoric Music Skills Test MMST to examine how young children utilized motor tasks with music The MMST consisted of five subtests a motor pattern coordination b eyehand coordination c speed of movement d range of movement and e compound factors Gilbert administered the MMST to 808 children ages three through six Girls significantly outperformed boys on the subtests of motor pattern coordination eyehand coordination and compound factors This result is consistent with findings of Flohr 1991 on tests of maintaining steady beat and those of Schleuter and Schleuter 1985 1989 on three specific motor skills clapping stepping and chanting Gilbert 1981 conducted a followup study utilizing a stratified random sample from the population of 808 original study subjects to determine whether or not the original findings could be confirmed and to examine whether motoric music skills stabilized with age The gain scores of fouryearolds were significantly Childs Growth Development 311 greater than those of sevenyear olds in every subtest of the MMST Gilbert asserts that these results substantiate the idea common among motor theorists that most fundamental motor patterns emerge before age five and stabilize beyond that point However in both of Gilberts investigations it was unclear whether the improvement was due in any part to music instruction Brown Sherrill Gench 1981 examined two approaches to facilitating perceptualmotor development in foursix year old kindergartners N 30 The experimental group received 24 sessions of integrated physical educationmusic instruction while the control group received 24 sessions of movement exploration and selftesting instruction An analysis of covariance indicated that significant improvement occurred only in the experimental group with changes in the motor auditory and language aspects of perceptualmotor performance as well as in the total score Kalmar 1982 examined the effects of a method of singing instruction involving the accompaniment of music with rhythmic movements and the verbal or physical representation of songs on the development of young children Twenty threeyearolds were pretested and assigned to either the experimental group that received twiceweekly special singing lessons based on the Kodaly method over three years or the control group that attended only regular nursery school programs The experimental group showed greater improvement than the control group on measures of motor development particularly dynamic coordination abstract conceptual thinking and play improvisation and originality On an adaptation of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking the experimental group demonstrated superior performance on subtests requiring verbal responses but not on those involving drawing Further no betweengroup differences in IQ were found Childs Growth Development 312 Pollatou Karadimou Gerodimos 2005 examined gender differences in preschool students regarding musical aptitude rhythmic ability and motor performance Subjects N 95 including fiveyearold girls n 50 and boys n 45 were administered the Gordon Primary Measures of Music Audiation the HighScope Rhythmic Competence Analysis Test and the Gross Motor Development Test Although no significant gender differences were found in musical aptitude and gross motor skills performance girls outperformed boys in four of the six movements of rhythmic ability test Zachopoulou Tsapakidoub Derric 2004 compared the effect of a music and movement program to a physical education program on the development of jumping and dynamic balance in children ages four through six Subjects N 90 were placed into either an experimental group n 50 that followed the music and movement program or a control group n 40

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Sexual offenders with learning disabilities Risk recidivism and treatment Article PDF Available in Journal of Sexual Aggression 113289304 September 2005 with 2152 Reads DOI 10108013552600500273919 Export this citation Leam A Craig FPP Ltd Roger B Hutchinson Abstract While the literature on the assessment treatment and management of nonlearning disabled sexual offenders is well established it is only in recent years that researchers and clinicians have focused on sexual offenders with learning disabilities In contrast to mainstream sex offender treatment programmes there are few evaluated communitybased treatment programmes for sexual offenders with learning disabilities and of the small number of published studies that describe treatment programmes most are based on small samples and few have been validated empirically Sexual offenders with learning disabilities differ from their nondisabled counterparts in several important ways having implications for management and treatment Discover the worlds research 15 million members 118 million publications 700k research projects Content uploaded by Leam A Craig Author content Download fulltext PDF Sexual offenders with lear ning disabilities risk recidivism and treatment Leam Craig 12 Roger B Hutchinson 1 1 F orensic Psychology Practice Ltd The Willows Clinic UK and 2 University of Bir mingham UK Abstract While the literature on the assessment treatment and management of nonlear ning disabled sexual offenders is well established it is only in recent years that researchers and clinicians have focused on sexual offenders with lear ning disabilities In contrast to mainstream sex offender treatment prog rammes there are few evaluated communitybased treatment pro g rammes for sexual offenders with lear ning disabilities and of the small number of published studies that descr ibe treatment programmes most are based on small samples and few have been validated empir ically Sexual offenders with lear ning disabilities differ from their nondisabled counter par ts in several important ways having implications for management and treatment Due to methodological differences between studies the prevalence of sexual offending by men with lear ning disabilities is not clear However in some studies the sexual recidivism rate of offe nders with lear ning disabilities is 68 times and 35 times that of nondisabled sexual offenders at 2 and 4years followup respectively Sexual offenders with lear ning disabilities are also at g reater r isk of reoffending in a shorter time per iod There remains an urgent need for fur ther research into the assessment of r isk and whether components from mainstream treatment programmes can be adapted to meet the needs of lear ning disabled sexual offenders Approaches to working with sexual offenders with lear ning disabilities and prog ramme development are discussed Keywords Sexual offenders lear ning disabilities r isk assessment sex offender treatment programmes Introduction The treatment of sexual offenders has been the focus of considerable research in recent years Craig Browne Str inger 2003 Friendship Mann Beech 2003 Hanson et al 2002 and the literature has witnessed a number of theoretical and clinical advances leading to increasingly effective treatment programmes with sexual offenders Marques 1999 Marshall Anderson Fernandez 1999 W ard Hudson 1998 Recent analysis of sex offender outcome studies suggests that contemporar y treatments have a significant effect in reducing sexual recidivism Of the 19 treatment and metaanalytical studies n 33001 reviewed by Craig Browne and Stringer 2003 18 studies showed positive effect reduced recidivism Corresponding author Dr Leam A Craig Director of Forensic Prog rammes Forensic Ps ychology Practice Ltd The Wi llows Cli nic 98 Sheffie ld Clini c Bold mere Sutton Coldfiel d W est Mi ds B73 5HW U K Email LeamACraig aolcom Jour nal of Sexual Aggression September 2005 V ol 11 No 3 pp 289 304 ISSN 13552600 print17426545 online 2005 National Organisation for the T reatment of Abusers DOI 10108013552600500273919 onethird of which used sound methodology matched and randomised controls using appropriate measures of recidivism with cognitive behavioural techniques being most effective Hanson et al s 2002 metaanalysis of 43 n 9454 treatment studies found the sexual offence recidivism rate was low er for the treatment g roups 99 than the comparison groups 174 using cognitive behavioural treatments However the effect of inter vention was less marked in Friendship Mann and Beech s 2003 study which examined the treatment effects of 647 sexual offenders who had under taken treatment prog rammes in the UK prison system against a retrospective comparison untreated group of 1910 sexual offenders who had enrolled in treatment Offenders were categorized into levels of risk using the Static99 Hanson Thor nton 2000 and although significant differences in sexual reconviction were found between the treated and comparison g roup in the medium low 27 treated versus 127 compar ison and medium high 55 treated versus 135 comparison risk groups no significant differences were found between the low 19 treated versus 26 compar ison and high risk 26 treated versus 28 comparison groups Never theless these studies were based on nonlearning disabled sexual offenders and in comparison to mainstream sexual offender treatment programmes there are relatively few descriptions of communitybased treatment programmes available for sexual offender s with learning disabilities and are usually restr icted to case studies eg Lindsay Olley Baillie Smith 1999 Murphy 1997 The need for such inter ventions has never been greater With the advent of community care policies throughout the western W orld there has been a decrease in the provisions of custodial care for people with learning disabilities Lindsay et al 2002 Existing sexoffending treatment prog rammes have generally been restr icted to offenders who do not have a lear ning disability and have an intelligence quotient IQ of 80 or more This means that men with an IQ of 79 or below who have committed sexual offences or engaged in sexually abusive behaviour are often not offered such treatment Williams 2003 and yet criminal justice agencies are required to provide effective research based inter ventions designed to reduce the risk of recidivism in this client group Compared to their nonlear ning disabled counter par ts little is known of the assessment treatment and management of sexual offenders with learning disabilities The focus of this review is to summarize some of the key areas in working with sexual offender s with learning disabilities relating to risk assessment recidivism and to consider targets of inter vention when developing a communitybased treatment programme Defining learning disability Difficulties in assessing adaptivesocial functioning have contr ibuted to a tendency amongst clinicians to concentrate on assessment of intellectual functioning Professional Affairs Board 2001 This assumes that provided significant impair ment of intellectual functioning has been established similar deficits in adaptivesocial functioning are likely p 4 The diagnosis of a learning disability is not solely related to low intellect It is a mistake to overemphasize the role of IQ as an indicator of appropriate treatment strateg ies as IQ alone does not describe adequately a person s ability Coleman Haaven 2001 Indeed the Professional Affairs Board of The British Psychological Society BPS document Lear ning Disability Definitions and Context 2001 recommends that a classification of lear ning disability should be made only on the basis of assessed impair ments of both intellect and adaptivesocial functioning The document outlines the features that make up the definition of lear ning disability and is consistent with that of the American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders T ext Revised DSMTR 2000 and the Royal College of Psychiatrists 290 Leam A Craig and Roger B Hutc hinson 2001 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders Clinical Descr iption and Diagnostic Guidelines ICD10 CDDG WHO 1992 They identify three core criteria for lear ning disability all of which must be present for a per son to be considered to have a lear ning disability a significant impair ment of intellectual functioning IQ B 69 b significant impairment of adaptive and social functioning ie the person s effectiveness in meeting the standards expected of hisher age and cultural group in at least two of the following communication selfcare home living social interper sonal skills use of community resources selfdirection functional academic skills work health and safety and c onset before age 18 year s Significant impairment of adaptive and social functioning is defined as the individual requires significant assistance to provide for hisher own sur vival eating and drinking needs and to keep himherself clean war m and clothed andor with hisher socialcommunity adaptation eg social problem solving and social reasoning Professional Aff airs Board p 6 The pr inciple method for deter mining levels of intellectual functioning is via the use of psychometric assessment and the most commonly used assessment is the W echsler Adult Intelligence Scale third edition W AISIII W echsler 1999 The mean IQ score is 100 with a standard deviation of 15 In addition the ICD10 and the Professional Aff airs Board recommends the use of the Vineland Adaptive Behavi our Scales V ABS Sparrow et al 1984 as an assessment tool to measure impair ment of adaptivesocial functioning The V ABS is a semistructured inter view method and is designed to measure what the individual usually or habitually does and is divided into four domains communication daily living skills socialisation and motor skills the items of which are scored as 0 no 1 sometimes or par tially and 2 yes usually Scores can be compared to a range of different populations for which nor mative samples are available Significant impair ment of adaptive and social functioning is usually identified if scores f all at or below the third percentile range Aetiological theor ies of sexual offending by men with lear ning disabilities In tr ying to explain sexual offending in people with learning disabilities a number of hypotheses have been postulated For the sake of brevity we offer a brief descr iption of each of these for a more detailed discussion see Lindsay 2004a Counterfeit deviancy This hypothesis explains sexual deviance as being precipitated by factors such as a lack of sexual knowledge poor social and inter personal skills and limited oppor tunities to establish appropriate sexual relationships and sexual naivety rather than deviant sexual interests Howev er there is little research to suppor t this hypothesis and sexual offenders with lear ning disabilities display deviant sexual arousal and cognitive distor tions Murphy et al 1983 and are often deficient in sexual knowledge and skills Hinsburger 1987 Sexual offenders with lear ning disabilities 291 T endencies tow ard sexual offending and lack of discr imination This hypothesis assumes persistent sexual offending is a result of deviant sexual interests mediated by distor tions and selective cues Similar to nonlear ning disabled sexual offenders Hanson Bussie re 1998 sexual offenders with learning disabilities have been found to display deviant sexual arousal patter ns and cognitive distortions Murphy et al 1983 as well as having low selfesteem Lackey Knopp 1989 Lindsay et al 2002 found that 62 of referrals had previous sexual offending and Scorzelli and ReinkeScorzelli 1979 repor ted that 68 of a mix ed g roup of offenders with learning disabilities had previous offences Of the sample 33 of offences were against adults 28 against children with 18 accounting for indecent exposure Although sex offenders with lear ning disabilities tend to have low specificity for age and sex of their victims Gilby et al 1989 Griffiths et al 1985 they have a greater tendenc y to offend against male children and younger children Blanchard W atson Choy 1999 Brown Stein 1997 Sexual abuse There may be an association with sexual abuse in childhood and sexual offending Lindsay 2002 Lindsay et al 2001 compared the physical and sexual abuse histories of 46 sexual and 48 nonsexual offenders with learning disabilities and found that 38 of the sexual offenders and 127 of the nonsexual offenders had experienced sexual abuse while 13 of the sexual offender s and 33 of the nonsexual offender s had exper ienced physical abuse Howev er as Lindsay 2004a note a lack of standardization and appropriate controls in this area makes any conclusion speculative Impulsivity The impulsivity hypothesis assumes that sexual offender s with lear ning disabilities will be more impulsive than their nondisabled counter par ts However an examination of the levels of impulsivity in sexual offenders with learning disabilities compared with those of non learning disabled sexual offenders revealed no significant differences Lindsay Parry 2003 Similarly no differences were found in ter ms of educational histor y childhood disturbances adolescent history contact with psychiatric services or the number of previous charges for sex crimes Glaser Deane 1999 Indeed there is little evidence that sexual offenders with learning disabilities are any more impulsive with regard to their offending as they demonstrate delayed g ratification through the display of simple g rooming behaviours Lindsay 2004b Mental illness This hypothesis assumes that sexual offenders with learning disabilities are more likely to hav e a dual diagnoses of mental illness acting as a disinhibitor to offending Day 1994 and Lindsay et al 2002 both repor ted that 32 of sexual offenders with lear ning disabilities had suffered psychiatr ic illness in samples of sexual offenders with lear ning disabilities Howev er Lund 1990 repor ted that 917 875 categorized as behavioural disorder s had a diagnosis of mental illness in a sample of 274 mixed offenders with lear ning disabilities As Lindsay 2004a points out variations in definitions of mental illness may account for this discrepancy as behaviour disorders wer e repor ted separately in both the Day and Lindsay studies 292 Leam A Craig and Roger B Hutc hinson Prevalence Control studies have found prevalence rates for individuals with lear ning disabilities to be slightly higher in offender populations than in the general population Bor thwickDuffy 1994 MacEachron 1979 Lund 1990 found that 72 of patients

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