M.Ed. / Sexual molestation is a worldwide evil that affects all aspects ,of a child's humanity. It is stated that one out of every four girls and one out of every nine boys in South Africa are exposed to sexual molestation before they reach adulthood. Approximately 75 % of these molestations are committed by people who are well-known to the child and who occupy a position of trust. A disturbed educational relationship deprives a child of actively participating in his own development. It leaves him with a low sense of self-worth so that he feels negative and overwhelmed by the future. Childhood events have an influence on the developing adult and his future thought- and conduct-patterns. It is postulated that, should traumatic events disrupt the normal life cycle, destructive conduct-patterns develop that are detrimental to the individual as well as the broader community. The intervention of the educational psychologist is therefore necessary to break this destructive pattern. Consequently this research was aimed at learning about and understanding the life-world of the sexually molested child. An exploratory, descriptive, contextual and qualitative approach was followed to compile this information. In this research phenomenological interviews and projective techniques were used to involving six children, between the ages of ten and fifteen who were victims of sexual molestation. After the interviews had been recorded on audiotape and transcribed, and the drawings analyzed, the themes were identified and ordered. The results brought the following manifested experiences to light: shame due to own low self-worth; guilt due to a nagging conscience; fury due to violent conduct and humiliation; anxiety and pain due to fear of repetition and disappointment in mankind; distorted perceptions of the future due to deficient guidance by adults. Guidelines for the guidance of sexually molested children by the educational psychologist are discussed in accordance with the above mentioned themes, while Garbers' educational model is also referred to. It is clear that sexual molestation has extensive implications for its victims. It is however believed that these children can achieve personal insight, true healing and maximum inner potential, through the compassionate guidance of the educational psychologist.

Children's interaction with peers supports cognitive development in numerous ways. The claim investigated in the present study is that these benefits include support at a metacognitive level that children provide one another, specifically in the form of meta-level speech aimed at regulating the other's behavior. This proposition originates in Vygotsky's views of a bi-directional zone of proximal development between peers with resulting transfer from inter-mental to intra-mental planes. Sixty-four 7th graders participated in the study. Students who shared a position on a social issue engaged in electronic dialogs with a succession of pairs who held an opposing position. In one condition (Stay), students worked with the identical same-side partner over six twice-weekly dialog sessions. In the other condition (Switch), students worked with a new same-side partner at each session. Students experienced both conditions, half of them first the Stay condition and then, discussing a new topic, the Switch condition. Condition order was reversed for the other half of participants. Students engaged in more frequent meta-talk in the Stay than the Switch condition; Stay conversations contained more frequent regulatory utterances than Switch conversations and a greater proportion of planning statements. Electronic dialogs produced in the Stay condition contained a higher proportion of meta-talk than those produced in the Switch condition; however, differences favoring the Stay condition in direct counterargument use were found at only one of two data collection points. On the whole, differences suggest that collaborators scaffolded one another’s meta-level development through regulatory conversation that evolved over time as collaborators developed their relationships, and that, for Stay pairs, this evolving shared regulatory talk extended to the electronic discourse. There was no consistent evidence, however, that this success extended to argument strategies on the discourse task.

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Faculty of Education. Bibliography: leaves 142-155.

Youth who experience maltreatment are at increased risk for delinquent behavior. This pattern in which youth victims become offenders has been termed the Cycle of Violence. This study identifies intervening factors that explain how maltreatment leads to delinquency in order to highlight methods for interrupting the Cycle of Violence. A first primary objective of this study is to determine whether more severe maltreatment leads to more severe delinquency among youth involved in the child welfare system. Next, the study investigates what factors explain the relationship between maltreatment and delinquency, examining mental health, substance use, and school disengagement as potential intervening factors. Finally, this research tests whether pathways from maltreatment to delinquency differ by gender. The study sample is drawn from three waves of the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) [1999-2003]. This national sample included 1179 youth (age 11-15 at baseline) who were involved in the child welfare system. Data were analyzed using Latent Growth Modeling (LGM). Findings indicate youth who were more severely maltreated had higher levels of initial delinquency and more stable delinquency over time. Sexually abused youth were no more or less likely to report delinquent behavior than youth who experienced other forms of maltreatment, and gender did not affect delinquency patterns. Among the intervening factors, mental health and school disengagement significantly mediated the maltreatment-delinquency relationship. These findings indicate that youth who were more severely maltreated reported more mental health problems (depression and PTSD) and more school disengagement. These problems resulted in youths’ increased risk for delinquent behavior. Substance use did not mediate the maltreatment-delinquency relationship. Substance use was, however, a strong predictor of delinquency among all youth involved in the child welfare system regardless of the level of maltreatment experienced. It is noteworthy that gender did not moderate the relationship between maltreatment and delinquency or any of the mediating effects. Results indicate a need for improved screening and intervention in child welfare to prevent youths’ delinquent behavior and strongly indicate the need for improved cross-system collaboration to bridge services systems. / text

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Educational Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

This study was designed to investigate the following problem: Among a selected group of secondary school students who are considered to be youth-in-trouble, what perceptual patterns exist concerning their personal relationships within the school and the home? The setting is in a rapidly growing community in the southwestern United States. A theoretical framework was selected which emphasized personal processes. It included the categories of: (1) contact, (2) consult, (3) share, (4) choose. A search of literature related to the categories of the framework was conducted. On the basis of the theoretical framework, a questionnaire was designed with statements consisting of 16 items reflecting the four categories of contact, consult, share, and choose and was administered to a sample of youth who were judged to be youth-in-trouble to probe certain relationships experienced by youth-in-trouble in the school and in the home. The data derived from the questionnaire were then organized under the four categories of the theoretical framework. According to "The Theory of Personal Processes" used in this investigation, contact must occur at the outset of any interaction and must persist throughout the relationship. At a very early point in the interaction, consultation becomes an extension of contact and thereby supplies the means by which the interests of the youths are discovered. These interests constitute the basic ingredient for the interaction. As the interactive process continues, sharing, a mutual exchange of ideas and interests, is the basis of cooperative effort. Throughout the interactive process, choosing should be at a maximum if there is to be a high degree of freedom and democratic living. The investigation revealed the followng patterns: (1) Contact: The youth-in-trouble reported little effective contact between themselves and their parents. The youth-in-trouble reported little effective contact between themselves and their teachers. (2) Consult: The youth-in-trouble reported little effective consultation between themselves and their parents. The youth-in-trouble reported little effective consultation between themselves and their teachers. (3) Share: The youth-in-trouble reported little effective sharing between themselves and their parents. The youth-in-trouble reported litttle effective sharing between themselves and their teachers. (4) Choose: The youth-in-trouble reported little effective choosing between themselves and their parents. The youth-in-trouble reported little effective choosing between themselves and their teachers. In light of the above findings, it can be concluded that the youth-in-trouble who were studied in this investigation generally seemed not to perceive themselves as operating in home and school environments of freedom and democratic living.

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