Childhood sexual victimization,pedophilic interest,and sexual recidivism

Objective

The goal of the current study was to examine the extent to which child sexual abuse (CSA) and particular characteristics of CSA are associated with pedophilic interest and sexual recidivism.

Methods

Subjects were 462 adult male sexual offenders who had been incarcerated in Canadian federal prisons.

Results

Compared to sexual offenders who had not been sexually abused, those who had been sexually abused before age 16 sexually offended against significantly younger victims and had significantly more indicators of pedophilic interest. This was the case whether we examined self-reported or officially documented CSA. Offenders who had been sexually abused exclusively by a male had significantly more indicators of pedophilic interest than those who had been sexually abused exclusively by a female. These findings are consistent with past research and theory suggesting that CSA may play a role in pedophilia and sexual offending against children. CSA exclusively by a female abuser predicted higher rates of sexual recidivism than abuse by a male or both a male and female abuser. Among offenders with victims 15 years old or younger, a closer relationship between offender and abuser predicted higher rates of sexual recidivism. The relationship between CSA and sexual recidivism was significantly moderated by actuarial risk. More specifically, CSA predicted higher rates of sexual recidivism among higher risk offenders, but CSA did not predict sexual recidivism among lower risk offenders. This novel finding raises the possibility that CSA may play a role in sexual recidivism for some offenders.

Conclusion

If future research replicates this CSA by risk interaction and identifies the constructs and processes involved, CSA may be worth considering in risk assessment and treatment.     

Facilitating Student Learning,the Assessment of Learning,and Curricular Improvement Through a Graduate Social Work Integrative Seminar

Social work programs undertake to educate competent professionals and to promote critical thinking among students who are expected to become lifelong learners. In addition, programs are called on to develop reliable and valid measures for assessing student learning outcomes and to use assessment results to reflect upon and strengthen curriculum. This study explores the use of a graduate integrative seminar to accomplish these goals. The authors describe the learning and assessment processes of the seminar. The authors used a mixed-method research design to analyze data from students over a 3-year period regarding the effectiveness of the seminar as well as from graduate faculty regarding student achievement of curricular objectives. Results indicate that formative assessment processes promote student learning in a manner that mobilizes students to strive for excellence, and that an embedded measure of learning outcomes in the form of a final integrative project may serve as a rigorous assessment tool.     

Magnesium status and the physical performance of volleyball players: effects of magnesium supplementation

Abstract

The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that magnesium supplementation influences the physical performance of volleyball players, as the efficacy of this approach remains questionable. Twenty-five professional male volleyball players were assigned randomly to experimental (350 mg Mg · d^–1, 4 weeks) and control groups (500 mg maltodextrin · d^–1, 4 weeks) maintaining inter-group homogeneity of urinary magnesium. Erythrocyte, plasma and urinary magnesium levels, plasma creatine kinase activity, lactate production, maximal oxygen uptake (VO₂ max) and plyometric (squat jump, countermovement jump, countermovement jump with arm swing) and isokinetic (peak torque, potency and total work) performances were evaluated before (T₀) and after (T₁) supplementation. Levels of erythrocyte and urinary magnesium and creatine kinase activity and VO₂ max remained within normal ranges in both groups. Plasma magnesium decreased significantly only within the experimental group. Significant decreases in lactate production and significant increases (of up to 3 cm) in countermovement jump and countermovement jump with arm swing values were detected in the experimental group following magnesium supplementation, but not in the control group at T₁. It is concluded that magnesium supplementation improved alactic anaerobic metabolism, even though the players were not magnesium-deficient.     

Dinosaurs in a Jetson world: A dozen ways to revitalize your microforms collection

Microforms collections are at a crossroads and how effective libraries are in increasing the visibility and usability of these collections will determine whether they endure. In the last decade many libraries have made significant changes in how they process, catalog, and provide access to their traditional book and journal collections, even in how they view their library's physical spaces and the role of library services in providing support for their collections. This article will suggest changes libraries will need to make if they expect to mainstream the most useful and valuable parts of their microforms collections by applying some of the same innovative and change-oriented approaches they have used in other areas of their libraries.     

The relations between children's linguistic awareness and spelling: The case of the apostrophe

In a longitudinal study, we looked at the link between children'sunderstanding of a morphemically-based orthographic rule and theirawareness of morphemic distinctions. The orthographic rule in question wasthe use of the apostrophe to denote possession in English. Early on in thestudy, we gave the children phonological, semantic/syntactic and morpho-syntactic awareness tasks, and later we gave them a spelling task in whichthey had to write words which were either genitives (e.g., `boy's') ornominative or accusative plurals (e.g., `boys'). Eight- to 10-year-oldchildren found this task difficult, but their performance improved to someextent with age. The morpho-syntactic, but not the phonological orsemantic/syntactic, awareness tasks predicted how well the children placedapostrophes in genitive words and omitted them from plural words. Weconclude that different forms of linguistic awareness affect differentaspects of reading and spelling. Learning about spelling patterns based onmorphemes is heavily influenced by children's morpho-syntactic awarenessbut not, apparently, by other forms of linguistic awareness.