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Dentro de la antropología y la identificación forense, la aproximación facial (también conocida como "reconstrucción facial") se presenta frecuentemente como un hecho consumado, con evidencia mínima de las investigaciones y los métodos usados para alcanzar los resultados. Este trabajo presenta un panorama detallado de la investigación y los métodos usados para realizar una aproximación facial grafica en 2D de un hombre prehistórico del valle de Jachal, provincia de San Juan, Argentina. Se entiende que corresponde a un miembro del extinto grupo Huarpe. El cráneo del individuo muestra numerosos rasgos morfológicos que son consistentes con lo que se conoce acerca de este grupo de agricultores tempranos americanos. Debido a que muchos de los métodos utilizados en esta reconstrucción facial aun no han sido verificados y aquellos que han sido debidamente probados se basan en promedios estadísticos de la variación humana, los resultados presentados deben ser vistos como indicativos de la posible apariencia facial del individuo dado el nivel actual de conocimiento, más que como un resultado definitivo.

Creating a facial appearance for individuals from the distant past is often highly problematic, even when verified methods are used. This is especially so in the case of non-European individuals, as the reference populations used to estimate the face tend to be heavily biased towards the average facial variation of recent people of European descent. To evaluate the problem, a facial approximation of a young woman from the Late Pleistocene rockshelter of Tham Lod in north-western Thailand was compared against the average facial variation of datasets from recent populations. The analysis indicated that the Tham Lod facial approximation was neither overtly recent in facial morphology, nor overtly European. The case is of particular interest as the Tham Lod individual probably belonged to a population ancestral to extant Australo-Melanesian peoples. Keywords: Thailand, Late Pleistocene, craniofacial morphology, facial approximation, facial reconstruction, Introduction Genetic evidence suggests that Thailand has been at the crossroads of human migration between Mainland and Island Southeast Asia from the Pleistocene to the present (Wangkumhang et al. 2013), [...]

Background: Childhood sexual and physical abuse has been related to subsequent offending behaviour in non-disabled individuals as well as people with intellectual disabilities, but there is a dearth of research examining the link between these two characteristics and psychological, behavioural and psychiatric symptoms amongst sex offenders with intellectual disabilities. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between childhood abuse, history of psychological and psychiatric symptoms, and patterns of violence in later offending. Methods: Twenty sex offenders with intellectual disabilities were compared with 20 non-disabled sex offenders. The Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test, the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, and a structured clinical interview were administered to participants. Results: Offenders with ID were more likely to report that they had been the victim of physical abuse during childhood; aggressive behaviour during adulthood was related to a history of having been the victim of childhood physical abuse, or exposure to family violence. Participants in the ID group were more likely to be diagnosed with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and aggressive behaviour. A history of childhood exposure to violence was related to the development of later symptoms, for both ID and non-disabled offenders. Perpetrators with ID who had been physically abused during their developmental years were significantly more likely to threaten or use violence during the offence. Conclusions: The study suggests that childhood abuse may be related to severity of the crime, and to the development of later psychological and psychiatric symptoms. Longitudinal research in this area and a larger sample size are needed to clarify and extend the present findings.

Of the 4000 women and girls in custody in England and Wales, an unknown proportion will have a learning disability. Most research on the plight of offenders or accused persons with a learning disability has focussed on men because women form a small proportion of the prison population, and women with learning disabilities are an even smaller sub-group. Women prisoners are likely to be poor, under-educated, and lacking in vocational skills. Many report having been the victim of physical, emotional or sexual abuse, and the majority have symptoms of mental disorder. The small number of women's prisons and the paucity of community options for diversion from prison result in specific areas of difficulty and unmet need for this group. As with their non-disabled counterparts, women with a learning disability in prison have a high rate of mental illness, greater than their male counterparts with a learning disability. There is little advocacy for women prisoners with a learning disability and they tend to be an overlooked and devalued group. Further research and policy development is urgently needed, enabling the voice of women offenders with a learning disability to be heard.

Over-representation of people with learning disability in prisons has been demonstrated in many Western jurisdictions. This was the first comprehensive research in a UK prison. The research used a random 10% sample of a prison population (n = 140). A semi-structured interview, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III (UK version) and the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales (VABS) Interview Edition were administered. On the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III, UK version (WAIS-III (UK)), 7.1% of participants achieved standard scores below 70 and a further 23.6% were in the 70-79 (borderline) range. The VABS results indicated that 10.1% had standard scores below 70 and a further 33.3% were in the borderline range. The results indicate that the prevalence of intellectual (or learning) disability as measured on either or both of the WAIS-III (UK) or the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales is higher than previous research in the UK has indicated. The results have implications for provision of services in prison and post-release.

We found moderate correlations among four policy attributes (consistency, specificity, authority, and power), which suggest that in many states, at least in design, standards-based reform is working as advocates imagined--aligned content standards and assessments established, backed up by detailed guidelines and frameworks, incentivized by rewards and sanctions, and supported with extra resources and programs for struggling students and their teachers. Our findings suggest that specificity and authority may be related to improvements in procedural knowledge, and no change in problem solving or conceptual understanding, while power (accountability) may be associated with a small decrease in all types of learning. We found that disadvantaged students showed gains in procedural knowledge and did not lose ground in either conceptual understanding or problem solving. Implications for developing an improved theory of policy effects on achievement are discussed.

Background: The relationship between adaptive behaviour and cognitive functioning in offenders with intellectual disabilities is not well researched. This study aims to examine gender and age effects on the relationship between these two areas of functioning. Method: The "Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales" (VABS) and the "Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test" (K-BIT) were administered to 202 volunteer participants accused or convicted of crimes, 9% being of Australian indigenous background. The sample included males and females, juveniles and adults. Results: Significant correlations were found between all subtests and domains on each instrument; for males under 18 years, correlations were lower, and significant correlations were absent between K-BIT Vocabulary and VABS subdomains and composite standard score for this group. Conclusions: Generally there is convergence between assessment of adaptive behaviour and cognitive skills, across age ranges and for both genders. Caution is needed in interpreting test results for young male offenders with possible intellectual disability; repeat assessments are advisable for this group.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is associated with social skills deficits and co-occurring mental health difficulties. ASD frequently co-occurs with Intellectual Disability (ID). There is scant literature exploring the association between social skills and mental health in children with ASD, with or without ID. Participants were 292 children aged six to 13 with ASD (217 without ID; 76 with Mild ID). Parents and teachers rated social skills and mental health using standardised questionnaires. Greater mental health difficulties were associated with greater social responsiveness difficulties and poorer social skills across the sample. Effect sizes were large. Social skills explained a significant proportion of the variance in mental health scores across the sample. The study has important implications for treatment and future research., Author(s): Belinda Ratcliffe[sup.1] [sup.2] , Michelle Wong[sup.1] , David Dossetor[sup.1] , Susan Hayes[sup.3] Author Affiliations: (1) Department of Psychological Medicine, The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Locked Bag 4001, 2145, Westmead, [...]