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CALYPSOS PROJECT INTELLECTUAL OUTPUTS 2 & 3 ERASMUS+ 2016-1-ES01-KA204-025656 1 STUDY ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CRIMINAL BEHAVIOUR, EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS AND THEIR IMPACT ON THE SPECIFIC NEEDS FOR EDUCATIONAL SUPPORT IN PRISON STUDENTS COORDINATION: JUAN GARCÍA GARCÍA [email protected] ANA MARÍA MARTÍN RODRÍGUEZ [email protected] AUTHORS: Juan García García1, Ana María Martín Rodríguez2, Rui João Abrunhosa Gonçalves3, Silvia Cataldi4, María Dolores Roldán Tapia1, Ana Rita Cruz3, Marino Bonaiuto4, Flor Zaldívar Basurto1, Claudia Héctor Moreira2, Elena Ortega Campos1, Adelina Estévez Monzó2, Ana Cunha3, Leticia De la Fuente Sánchez1, María del Rosario Ortiz González2, Virginia Alves3 1University of Almería (Spain) 2University of La Laguna (Spain) 3 Universidade do Minho (Portugal) 4Universitá La Sapienza di Roma (Italy) CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 3 a) Educational performance, cognitive functioning and criminal behaviour ... 3 b) Executive Function and Criminal Behaviour .............................................. 9 c) Meta-analysis of the relationship between adult criminal behaviour and executive functions. ...................................................................................... 12 2 2. EMPIRICAL STUDIES ..................................................................................... 22 a) General methodology of intellectual products 2 y 3 ................................ 22 b) Results of Intellectual Product 2 .............................................................. 31 c) Results of Intellectual Product 3 .............................................................. 39 d) Discussion of the results of Intellectual Products 2 & 3 ........................... 49 3. CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 53 a) The context of intervention in Adult Education in Prison ......................... 53 b) The training of executive functions in the school context and its application …………………………………………………………………………………...59 4. BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES ............................................................ 65 Appendix: Tests used according to country and technical specifications for the evaluation of executive functions .......................................................................... 76 Description of intellectual products ……….………………………………………82 DISCLAIMER The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. 1- INTRODUCTION The report presented contains the results for outputs 2 and 3 of the project. Output 2 refers to the neuropsychological evaluation study of the Special Educational Support Needs (SESN) functions of adult inmate students in the four reference prisons compared to standardized peers. Output 3 refers to the neuropsychological assessment of the executive functions of students in prison compared to peers 3 who have passed through the juvenile justice system and with standardized peers. The objective is to give a unitary character to the products financed by Erasmus+, grouping them under the title "Study of the relationship between criminal behaviour and executive functions and their impact on the Special Educational Support Needs of students in penitentiary centres". a) Educational performance, cognitive functioning and criminal behaviour The relationship between delinquency and education analyses the process by which learners gradually disassociate themselves from school and become more and more involved in criminal behaviour (Christle, Jolivette & Nelson, 2005). Educational problems are an important risk factor in the origin and control of criminal acts (Andrews & Bonta, 2010). Low educational attainment has been associated with both crime and recidivism rates (Leone et al., 2003), so that the higher the literacy and educational attainment the lower the rates of crime and recidivism (Keith & McCray, 2002). School performance influences recidivism, understood not only as behaviour, performance and attendance, but also as a belief in the value of education, in which the school provides a stimulating environment and in which the person can feel a certain sense of well-being by interacting with teachers. Therefore, perceptions and beliefs about the school and educators should be taken into account as much as improved school behaviour and grades (Baglivio, Wolff, Jackowski & Greenwald, 2015). Although juvenile delinquents have been found to have lower overall academic performance than their peers of the same age (Thompson & Morris, 2016), most studies have focused almost exclusively on academic performance. Since the early 1950s, about 85% of juvenile offenders have been known to perform worse academically than their normalized peers (Glueck & Glueck, 1950). In a subsequent study, Thompson & Morris (2013) found that less than half of a sample of more than 1,000 juvenile delinquents had passed literacy and math tests for 4 their age. There is now no doubt that poor academic performance is systematically associated with delinquency, both that which is limited to adolescence and that which appears late or persists throughout the life cycle (Jolliffe, Farrington, Piquero, Loeber & Hill, 2017). This lower academic performance has been linked to learning difficulties that limit students' ability to understand complex information and also cause them problems in carrying out everyday tasks. In a study carried out by Alm & Andersson (1997), with 61 prisoners aged between 18 and 67, it was found that all of them had a background of reading and writing problems, detected through spelling, reading comprehension and reading speed tests. Thirty-one per cent of them had dyslexia. This percentage was 41% for Jensen, Lindgren, Meurling, Ingvar & Levander (1999) and 62% for Lindgren, Dalteg, Wirsén-Meurling & Ingvar (2002). These last authors also found that 55% of the inmates had received a diagnosis of ADHD, which led them to conclude that the inmates' school failure could be caused by these dyslexia and ADHD problems. This opinion is shared by Talbot & Riley (2007) for whom the percentage of inmates with learning difficulties or attention deficit disorder (ADHD) was between 20% and 30%. In terms of the relationship between academic achievement and recidivism, Katsiyannis, Ryan, Zhang & Spann (2008) state that the highest recidivism rates are among inmates with the lowest academic standards. Education in prison has also been shown to reduce recidivism (Davis et al., 2013; Kim & Clark, 2013). But this relationship between academic performance and recidivism can be spurious because most prisoners belong to more vulnerable social groups, with little knowledge and skills, groups at greater risk of exclusion from the labour market, poverty, debt, drug use and lack of an adequate social network. These shortcomings are not only related to their poor academic performance, but also result in fewer job opportunities when they are released (Roth, Asbjørnsen & Manger, 2017). Lack of employment makes it more likely that people who have served prison sentences will depend exclusively on social benefits and will reoffend (Palmer, 2012). Educated prisoners therefore reduce the risk of recidivism by increasing their employment opportunities after release (Davis, Bozick, Steele, 5 Saunders & Miles, 2013). Despite accumulated evidence on the relationship between low academic achievement and crime, there are few specific programmes for offenders that focus on their learning difficulties as opposed to programmes aimed at controlling anger and violence, sexual assault, incendiary behaviour, etc. (Taylor & Lindsay 2010). This is probably because there are few studies on the variables that influence the academic performance of prisoners, not so much because they are prisoners but because research on the academic performance of adults in basic education is very scarce compared to that of children and adolescents. For this reason, it is necessary to turn to research on academic performance in general to find empirical evidence on which to base intervention with this group. In addition, the amount of research on academic performance is small in relation to that carried out in the field of education and the studies that address it tend to do so in a secondary way in relation to other variables (Cabrera, 2016). Fortunately, when it has been studied, the interest has focused not only on identifying those variables that can lead to low performance, but also on promoting good performance (Tomás, Expósito & Sempere, 2014). Thus, it has been confirmed that academic performance is influenced by contextual variables but also by personal variables, such as demographics, attitudes and cognitive variables (Artunduaga, 2008; Tejedor, Sabucedo, Sobral, Serrano & Caride, 1991). However, in order to achieve academic success, it is not enough for students to have the necessary motivation (disposition, intention and motivation); they also need cognitive skills (abilities, knowledge and strategies) (González, Valle, Suárez & Fernández, 1999). Although cognitive-motivational variables have traditionally been used to explain academic performance, more recently the relationship between executive functioning and academic performance has been emphasized (Huizinga,