Working With Intellectually Disabled Sexual Offenders

1
Working With Intellectually Disabled Sexual
Offenders

• Mick Pykett
• Dr Fiona Williams

2
Intellectual disability

• IQ 70 and below ( as measured by a standardised
  IQ assessment)
• Deficits in adaptive functioning
• Evident before 18 years of age
• (DSM-IV-TR, 2000)

3
Impaired adaptive functioning

• Communication and social skills
• ( Interacting and communicating with others)
• Independent living skills
• ( Shopping, self care, budgeting, dressing and
  grooming)
• Personal care skills
• ( Eating, hygiene, health and safety, dressing
  and grooming)
• Employment/work skills
• (Self direction, use of own time, leisure time,
  following directions, completing tasks and
  getting to places on time)
• Practical academics
• ( Reading, computation and telling time)

4
Language

• Mental retardation USA
• Mental handicap - Ireland
• Learning Disability - UK
• Intellectual Disability UK 2000 onwards
• Specifc Learning Disability Average IQ,
  Dyslexia, dyscalculia

5
Common problems for ID offenders in prison

• Prisoners are not routinely assessed for ID or
  other learning difficulties so the problem is
  unknown
• Staff are not trained to spot or work with these
  difficulties
• ID prisoners tend to get into trouble for not
  following orders they may forget them, not
  understand them in the first place due to pace of
  conversation, take them literally or have
  problems initiating a behaviour

6

• Difficulties with reading and writing and with
  adaptive functioning means they have trouble with
  choosing activities, canteen orders and food
• May have difficulties putting in applications to
  healthcare or psychology or reading prison rules
  and notices. May be seen as lazy or trouble
  makers
• Tend to mask their behaviours e.g they give an
  an answer which may be incorrect seen as rude
  or cheeky
• May not respond to offending behaviour treatment
  seen as resistant, not motivated and risky

7
Psychological impact

• Fear of failure
• Sensitivity to disability
• Not confident to ask for help
• Frustration/give up easily
• Desire to please
• Masking

8
IQ assessment

• Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale IV (WAIS IV)
• Working memory
• Verbal Comprehension
• Perceptual reasoning
• Processing speed

9
Verbal expression

• Receptive language problems Difficulty
  understanding long or complex words, decoding
  sentences and understanding the meaning of
  language
• Expressive language problems- Dont know the
  right words to convey meaning, limited range of
  vocabulary, use words, sayings and clichés
  incorrectly.

10
Processing speed

• May take longer for the brain to find meaning to
  what is being said
• Responses are slowed because the brain is trying
  to decode
• May lose track of things because they are trying
  to decode the last sentence
• Very difficult to multi-task

11
Memory

• Harder to find and recall memories
• Difficult to hold information in working memory
  in order to use it
• Takes longer to record new memories e.g. learn
• May forget a question asked of them and try to
  mask this by answering unusually. E.g. closed
  answer to an open question, or provide an
  response that doesnt match the question

12
Perceptual reasoning

• Using your imagination to think things through
  in pictures, such as map reading, puzzles,
  abstract concepts
• Hard to adapt to new novel situations as it is
  harder to anticipate what might happen
• Difficult to categorise concepts might struggle
  with the difference between thoughts and feelings
• Difficulty with time sequencing and understanding
  time related concepts and words

13

• Adapted Treatment Approaches
• Self management
• IQ 60 80
• Motorway vs scenic path
• ID individuals can learn
• Its our job to identify the best method to
  facilitate learning
• You have to change
• Personalised learning

14
Introducing VAK

• Visual
• Auditory
• Kinaesthetic

15
Principles for Working with ID

• Move away from exclusive use of the
  auditory/verbal style
• Reduce need for abstract thinking and
  hypothetical situations
• Reduce load on memory

16
Visual

• Use pictures, drawings, symbols, posters, photos
• Ask them to bring in materials e.g. pictures,
  books, writing
• Keep the visual stimuli simple and clear i.e.
  Use simple words
• Use timelines to mark out where things happened
• Visual imagery

17
Visual

• Try to accompany all your questions with a visual
  aid
• Draw situations you want to discuss
• Ask them to draw to answer any questions, show
  you what they mean
• Consider use of visually based exercises

18
Auditory

• One question at a time
• Short sentences
• Use simple language - avoid words with 3
  syllables or more
• No clichés or dry humour
• Use metaphors to help them describe if your
  feeling was a colour, cartoon character etc
• Relate size of feelings to size of objects e.g.
  as big as an elephant
• Adapt to their language needs someone with good
  receptive language may need to be asked questions
  verbally but answer through showing (visually or
  kinaesthetically) and vice versa

19
Auditory

• Encourage group discussions
• Use of music if appropriate
• Use sound of voice to alter tone and pace of the
  session slow pace of speech
• Open questions
• Repetition of information to aid recall
• Frequent praise
• Pair auditory stimuli with visual and kinaesthetic

20
Kinaesthetic

• Exercises which help them get into a state to
  work with you icebreakers, brain breaks during
  the interview
• Explore things in role-plays show me what you
  would do/did do
• You show them demonstrate points or questions
  by role play or holding positions
• Have them direct you tell me what I should do
• Put them in roles to achieve learning e.g.
  perspective taking

21
Kinaesthetic

• Using hand gestures to accompany visual and
  auditory material
• Use movement when appropriate
• Brain breaks
• Give each person in the group a specific role to
  keep their attention
• Games that aid memory and recall

22
General tips

• Be aware of suggestibility try to avoid leading
  questions
• Avoid hypothetical situations
• Check out learning by asking them to tell you
  want they understand
• Use common anchors to help them describe times
  e.g. meal times, birth days etc

23
.

• Process
• Is as important as
• Content