News

The Times reported that the Police in Hertfordshire are using polygraph to decide whether to charge suspected criminals for the first time in policing history. See link for the full article:

This latest report from the Royal Society makes a number of recommendations to create a better understanding between legal professionals and neuroscientists in order to communicate research findings, for training and education, and for the foundations for applied research.

For the full report, please click on the link below.

The Inventory of Legal Knowledge (ILK) is a new instrument designed to assess feigning in the context of a competency-to-stand-trial evaluation. The test’s development, rationale, user-friendliness, and implementation are discussed and critically reviewed. Several shortcomings in the validity evidence are revealed, suggesting the ILK’s ability to discriminate malingerers from those actually incompetent may be much less impressive than implied in the manual. The recommended cutoff score of 47 produces unacceptable levels of false positives among defendants classified as actually incompetent and should not be used. The full article can be found by clicking on the link below:

A group of research professionals, therapists, and recovering victims—have established an organization Aftermath Surviving Psychopathy, designed to assist people who are or have been in relationship with individuals with psychopathic traits. This group is not a research organization but is designed to provide informational support and resources to those who have been affected by individuals with psychopathic traits, including parents of youth showing such traits, ex-spouses and relationship partners, business partners, etc.

For more information please click on the link below:

Ewen Callaway report in Nature: "Sex and violence are intertwined in mice. A tiny patch of cells buried deep within a male's brain determines whether it fights or mates, and there is good reason to believe humans possess a similar circuit."

Please click on link below for the full report:

Treating Animal Abuse:

Online Courses
Arizona State University and Animals and Society Institute are once again partnering to provide two online courses: TAA1, now in progress, focuses on human-nonhuman animal relationships, both positive and abusive; TAA2, to be offered Spring 2010, is a practicum on AniCare, a treatment approach for juveniles and adults who abuse animals. This is an excellent opportunity for students and professionals nationwide to take advantage of this course. The program is delivered online using the ASU Blackboard system. CEUs are available for both courses.

TAA1 Human-Other Animal Relationships (14 weeks—next offered fall 2010).
This course focuses on two broad areas of current significance for health and human service professionals;(1) the link between non-human animal abuse and other forms of violence such as domestic violence, child and elder abuse; and (2) the powerful potential that positive connections with other animals have for healing and promoting resiliency in human beings while at the same time benefiting other animals. This course examines issues of prevention and treatment; it considers animals across the human life span, non-human animal abuse, and healing connections within an ecological and empowerment context; and works to build sensitivity to various cultural contexts.

TAA2 Assessment and Treatment of Animal Abuse (14 weeks) Spring semester, 2010.
Designed for both mental health practitioners and other professionals working with adults and children, this course presents AniCare an assessment and treatment approach for children and adults and children who have abused animals. Based on a well-established clinical theory and interventions for perpetrators of domestic violence, AniCare emphasizes the social-psychological causes of violence. Building on cognitive behavioral, psychodynamic, and attachment theories, AniCare Child keys on empathy and self-management. Through a manual, a demonstration DVD, and clinical case materials, students are introduced to a variety of exercises and other tools, such as puppet role play and projective material.

Admission Process
The program is delivered online using the ASU University Blackboard system. Information about registration is at http://ssw.asu.edu/portal/academic/certificates/treating-animal-abuse-certificate or contact Dr. Christina Risley-Curtiss (risley.curtiss@asu.edu). Deadline for TAA2 is January 5, 2010. Course runs from January 19 – May 4.

Tuition Costs
Each course costs $900.00, which includes the cost of the Blackboard availability and support as well as registration fees.

The Professional Development Certification Program
The two courses are part of the Professional Development Certification Program, a non-credit online program focused on training advanced level health and human service practitioners to treat those children and adults who have abused animals. For more information about the Certification Program, contact Dr. Christina Risley-Curtiss (risley.curtiss@asu.edu)

 Faculty
Dr. Christina Risley-Curtiss is an associate professor of Social Work at Arizona State University as well as Co-Director of the Child Welfare Training Project and an Affiliate with the ASU Women and Gender Studies Program. She has over 20 years of practice and management experience in a combination of public health and child welfare. She has authored/co-authored many publications and presented numerous scholarly papers and workshops to various state and national and international groups. Most recently she presented on assessment and treatment of animal abuse at the Alberta Canada SPCA violence conference. Her primary areas of research are in the areas of the animal-human bond and child welfare. Her course–Animal-Human Connections, won the HSUS 2004 Society and Animals New Course Award. She has national study of social work practitioner’s knowledge of the animal-human bond in press in Social Work and founded and directs a grant funded program for treatment of children who abuse animals. She is the former chair The Arizona Humane LINK, a coalition of animal welfare and human service agencies in Maricopa County, AZ.

Dr. Kenneth Shapiro is founder and executive director of Animals and Society Institute, founding editor of Society and Animals: Journal of Human-Animal Studies; and cofounding coeditor of Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science. Shapiro earned his BA from Harvard University and his PhD in clinical psychology from Duke University. His most recent book is Animal Models of Human Psychology: Critique of Science, Ethics and Policy. Ken and his colleagues developed the AniCare model for assessing and treating animal cruelty. He does training in this model nationally.

It was reported in the Bariatric Times that : "A 32-year-old man, four months out from gastric bypass surgery, was issued a citation for driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol shortly after leaving his brother�s wedding reception. According to the patient, he had only consumed one glass of champagne, although his blood alcohol content was above the legal limit to operate a motor vehicle (i.e., 0.08%). A female patient, 50 years of age and one year post-gastric bypass, hit and killed a pedestrian with her automobile after having less than two glasses of wine. When police arrived, she was staggering and slurring her words and was taken into custody. Two hours later, she was still unable to maintain her balance or to speak clearly, causing officials to suspect that she had drunk a bottle or two of wine instead of two glasses.
Were these patients telling the truth about the amount of alcohol they had consumed, or did bariatric surgery affect the way their bodies absorb or metabolize alcohol? In order to answer these questions, we queried our gastric bypass population to identify changes in their response to alcohol since surgery. Nearly all patients surveyed (90%) claimed that they were more sensitive to alcohol postoperatively versus preoperatively. Most patients reported that they could feel the effects of alcohol after taking only a few sips of their drink. More than 25 percent of patients said that they had, on occasion, lost muscular coordination after having only one to two drinks, and several of these patients claimed that they were unable to regain control of their balance and coordination for up to two hours. Nearly five percent of the patients who completed the survey said that they have received a DUI and that the incidence had occurred in the early postoperative months and after having only one alcoholic beverage".
For a link to the whole of this article, please click on the link below:

Report by US News on the forensic issues related to sleep disorders. See link below for the full article.

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder is linked to neurocognitive deficits in which the sufferer may experience difficulties with learning, judgement, planning and memory. In addition a number of associated problems have been identified, including: psychiatric disorders, school problems, propensity for criminal behaviour, substance abuse, and inappropriate sexual behaviours. For further information, please click on the file "Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders: A Guideline for Healthcare Professionals," produced by the British Medical Association Board of Science (June 2007).

Michael Waldham, Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University: his abstract and paper appears below:
ABSTRACT
Autism is currently estimated to affect approximately one in every 166 children, yet the cause or causes of the condition are not well understood. One of the current theories concerning the condition is that among a set of children vulnerable to developing the condition because of their underlying genetics, the condition manifests itself when such a child is exposed to a (currently unknown) environmental trigger. In this paper we empirically investigate the hypothesis that early childhood television viewing serves as such a trigger. Using the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey, we first establish that the amount of television a young child watches is positively related to the amount of precipitation in the child’s community. This suggests that, if television is a trigger for autism, then autism should be more prevalent in communities that receive substantial precipitation. We then look at county-level autism data for three states – California, Oregon, and Washington – characterized by high precipitation variability. Employing a variety of tests, we show that in each of the three states (and across all three states when pooled) there is substantial evidence that county autism rates are indeed positively related to county-wide levels of precipitation. In our final set of tests we use California and Pennsylvania data on children born between 1972 and 1989 to show, again consistent with the television as trigger hypothesis, that county autism rates are also positively related to the percentage of households that subscribe to cable television. Our precipitation tests indicate that just under forty percent of autism diagnoses in the three states studied is the result of television watching due to precipitation, while our cable tests indicate that approximately seventeen percent of the growth in autism in California and Pennsylvania during the 1970s and 1980s is due to the growth of cable television. These findings are consistent with early childhood television viewing being an important trigger for autism. We also discuss further tests that can be conducted to explore the hypothesis more directly.