Elizabeth Cauffman

Age Differences in Future Orientation and Delay Discounting

Age differences in future orientation are examined in a sample of 935 individuals between 10 and 30 years using a delay discounting task as well as a new self-report measure. Younger adolescents consistently demonstrate a weaker orientation to the future than do individuals aged 16 and older, as reflected in their greater willingness to accept a smaller reward delivered sooner than a larger one that is delayed, and in their characterizations of themselves as less concerned about the future and less likely to anticipate the consequences of their decisions. Planning ahead, in contrast, continues to develop into young adulthood. Future studies should distinguish between future orientation and impulse control, which may have different neural underpinnings and follow different developmental timetables.

Theory and Research on Desistance from Antisocial Activity among Serious Adolescent Offenders

Improving juvenile court decision making requires information about how serious adolescent offenders desist from antisocial activity. A systematic research agenda on this topic requires consideration of several processes, including normative development in late adolescence, what constitutes desistance, and the factors likely to promote the end of involvement in antisocial behavior and successful adjustment in early adulthood. This article presents an overview of the major points to consider in pursuing this research agenda.

Age differences in affective decision making as indexed by performance on the Iowa Gambling Task.

Contemporary perspectives on age differences in risk taking, informed by advances in developmental neuroscience, have emphasized the need to examine the ways in which emotional and cognitive factors interact to influence decision making. In the present study, a diverse sample of 901 individuals between the ages of 10 and 30 were administered a modified version of the Iowa Gambling Task, which is designed to measure affective decision making. Results indicate that approach behaviors (operationalized as the tendency to play increasingly from the advantageous decks over the course of the task) display an inverted U-shape relation to age, peaking in mid- to late adolescence. In contrast, avoidance behaviors (operationalized as the tendency to refrain from playing from the disadvantageous decks) increase linearly with age, with adults avoiding disadvantageous decks at higher rates than both preadolescents and adolescents. The finding that adolescents, compared to adults, are relatively more approach oriented in response to positive feedback and less avoidant in response to negative feedback is consistent with recent studies of brain development, as well as epidemiological data on various types of risky behavior, and may have important practical implications for the prevention of adolescent risk taking.

Operational Lessons from the Pathways to Desistance Project

Implementing a large, longitudinal study of any sample is a major undertaking. The challenges are compounded when the study involves multiple sites and a high-risk sample. This article outlines the methodology for the Pathways to Desistance study, a multisite, longitudinal study of serious juvenile offenders, and discusses the key operational decisions with the greatest impact on the study design.

Affiliation with antisocial peers, susceptibility to peer influence, and antisocial behavior during the transition to adulthood.

Developmental theories suggest that affiliation with deviant peers and susceptibility to peer influence are important contributors to adolescent delinquency, but it is unclear how these variables impact antisocial behavior during the transition to adulthood, a period when most delinquent individuals decline in antisocial behavior. Using data from a longitudinal study of 1,354 antisocial youth, the present study examined how individual variation in exposure to deviant peers and resistance to peer influence affect antisocial behavior from middle adolescence into young adulthood (ages 14 to 22 years). Whereas we find evidence that antisocial individuals choose to affiliate with deviant peers, and that affiliating with deviant peers is associated with an individuals own delinquency, these complementary processes of selection and socialization operate in different developmental periods. In middle adolescence, both selection and socialization serve to make peers similar in antisocial behavior, but from ages 16 to 20 years, only socialization appears to be important. After age 20, the impact of peers on antisocial behavior disappears as individuals become increasingly resistant to peer influence, suggesting that the process of desistance from antisocial behavior may be tied to normative changes in peer relations that occur as individuals mature socially and emotionally.

A Statewide Screening of Mental Health Symptoms Among Juvenile Offenders in Detention

OBJECTIVE As awareness of the high prevalence of mental health problems among juvenile offenders has grown, researchers and practitioners have recognized the need for reliable and efficient methods of assessing such problems among large numbers of offenders to ensure that limited treatment resources are applied to those with the greatest need. METHOD Between May 2000 and October 2002, 18,607 admissions were administered the computerized version of the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument Version 2 (MAYSI-2) 24 to 48 hours after their arrival at detention centers throughout Pennsylvania. RESULTS Approximately 70% of the males and 81% of the females scored above the clinical cutoff on at least one of the following five MAYSI-2 scales: Alcohol/Drug Use, Angry-Irritable, Depressed-Anxious, Somatic Complaints, and/or Suicide Ideation. Girls were more likely than boys to exhibit internalizing as well as externalizing problems. Mental health problems were most prevalent among white youths and least prevalent among African American youths. When youths repeated the screen upon subsequent visits to detention, their scores generally remained stable. CONCLUSIONS The findings suggest that the MAYSI-2 is a promising triage tool for emergent risk. The use of such a screen may reduce bias in allocation of treatment resources and improves our understanding of the nature of mental health problems in delinquent populations.

Mental health assessments in juvenile justice: report on the consensus conference.

OBJECTIVE At national, state, and local levels, there is increasing recognition of the importance of identifying and responding to the mental health needs of youths in the juvenile justice system, as policymakers and practitioners struggle to find ways to address causes and correlates of juvenile crime and delinquency. The proposed guidelines for mental health assessment provide explicit information about how, why, and when to obtain mental health information on justice youths at each important juncture in processing. METHOD A national group of expert researchers and practitioners convened in April 2002. Experts derived six recommendations, following the expert consensus method, for conducting mental health assessments in juvenile justice settings. Experts had broad experience creating collaborations between juvenile justice, mental health, and child welfare systems and understood the policy and health implications of conducting such assessments in juvenile justice settings. RESULTS Consensus Conference recommendations regarding screening for emergent risk, screening and assessment of mental health service needs, comprehensive mental health assessment components, assessment before community re-entry, need for periodic reassessment, and staff training are presented. CONCLUSION Deriving specific recommendations that can be implemented systematically is a necessary first step toward policy changes that will optimize the standard of care for this vulnerable population.

A Multimethod Assessment of Juvenile Psychopathy: Comparing the Predictive Utility of the PCL:YV, YPI, and NEO PRI

The current study compares 3 distinct approaches for measuring juvenile psychopathy and their utility for predicting short- and long-term recidivism among a sample of 1,170 serious male juvenile offenders. The assessment approaches compared a clinical interview method (the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version [PCL:YV]; Forth, Kosson, & Hare, 2003), a new self-report measure (the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory; Andershed, Kerr, Stattin, & Levander, 2002), and a personality-based approach (the NEO Psychopathy Resemblance Index; Lynam & Widiger, 2007). Results indicate a modest overlap between the 3 measures (rs = .26-.36); however, youths were often identified as psychopathic by 1 measure but not by others. Measures were weakly correlated with reoffending during subsequent 6- and 12-month periods. Findings suggest that although such scores may be useful indicators of the need for heightened monitoring in the short term, care should be taken when making predictions about long-term recidivism among adolescents. Moreover, the lack of long-term predictive power for the PCL:YV and the inconsistent psychopathy designations obtained with different measures raise serious questions about the use of such measures as the basis for legal or clinical treatment decisions.

Gender Differences in Mental Health Symptoms Among Delinquent and Community Youth

Although research indicates that female offenders demonstrate higher rates of mental health symptoms than male offenders, the lack of data on directly comparable groups of delinquent and community youths has limited this comparison. The current study includes adolescents detained in juvenile detention facilities (girls = 157; boys = 276) or who resided in the community (girls = 193; boys = 242) from four different geographical locales. Results indicate that the relative magnitude of gender differences was greater in detained youths than in community youths, with detained girls exhibiting greater levels of symptomatology than would be predicted on the basis of gender or setting alone. Although it may be self-evident that detained populations exhibit higher levels of externalizing problems than community populations, the present study helps to quantify such differences by using common measures and demographically matched samples and demonstrates that detained versus community differences are larger among girls than among boys.

Longitudinal Development of Secondary Sexual Characteristics in Girls and Boys Between Ages 9½ and 15½ Years

OBJECTIVES To identify ages when adolescents were in sexual maturity stages 2 through 5; to explain the relations between breast (girls), genital (boys), and pubic hair (girls and boys) development between ages 9(1/2) and 15(1/2) years; and to evaluate synchrony of pubertal development across characteristics. DESIGN Annual pubertal assessments. SETTING Ten locations in the United States. PARTICIPANTS A total of 859 adolescents (427 boys [49.7%] and 432 girls [50.3%]; 737 white [85.8%] and 122 black [14.2%]). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Changes in the 5 stages of breast, genital, and pubic hair development. RESULTS Girls were in breast maturity stages 2 and 3 earlier than comparable pubic hair stages. Although breast development in girls started earlier than pubic hair development, girls completed breast and pubic hair development at approximately the same age. Black girls were in all stages of breast and pubic hair development earlier than white girls. Boys were in stages 2, 3, 4, and 5 of genital development before the comparable pubic hair stage. In boys, genital development started earlier than pubic hair development, but pubic hair development was completed in less time. Black boys were in genital and pubic hair development about 7 months earlier than white boys. Black and white boys completed genital development in approximately 4(1/2) years, but black boys took approximately 6 months longer than white boys to complete pubic hair development. At stage 2, for 66.2% of girls, breast development preceded their pubic hair development; for 91.1% of boys, genital development preceded their pubic hair development. CONCLUSIONS The results of this study are useful in understanding normative variation in the timing and change in the development of secondary sexual characteristics at puberty. They will help identify adolescents with atypical changes in sexual maturation and unusual progression of sexual maturation and growth disorders.