Experiences and Research Data of a Speech Therapy Intervention in Young Offenders
Raffaella Citro
The connection between language disorders and behavioural disorders has been widely documented. There is also sometimes a difficulty in the differential diagnosis between these two types of disorders. Numerous studies, in fact, have shown that between 60 and 90% of young people involved in the juvenile justice system have language and communication difficulties, but, in most cases, these language and communication difficulties have either never been diagnosed or have been labelled as behavioural disorders. Yet, there have long been studies that show that specific speech-language interventions in the juvenile justice system have positive results and can help young people to avoid relapsing behaviour. A model structure for the logopaedic intervention in the juvenile justice system was proposed by the research project Youth Offending Speech And Language Therapy (YOSALT), in which the Federazione Logopedisti Italiani was a partner in the work that provided us with elements for understanding and analysing the phenomenon in Italy as well, leading to the development of tools for screening, assessment and logopaedic therapy for young offenders.
Keywords
Language Disorders, Behaviour Disorders, Young Adults, Speech Therapy Intervention.
