Grade Failure and Special Education Placement in Sexual Offenders’ Educational Histories

Abstract

A sample of 701 adult men underwent assessment following illegal or clinically significant sexual behaviors or interests. Patients were categorized on the basis of phallometric (penile) responses in the laboratory to erotic stimuli depicting adults, pubescent children, and prepubescent children; histories of sexual offenses; and self-reported sexual interests. Comprising the categories were men sexually interested in prepubescent children (pedophiles; n = 114), men sexually interested in pubescent children (hebephiles; n = 377), men sexually interested in adults and who had committed a sexual offense against an adult (teleiophilic offenders; n = 139), and men sexually interested in adults and who had no known history of any sexual offenses (teleiophilic nonoffenders; n = 71). Patients' assessments included IQ testing and self-reported academic history, which included any grade failures and assignment to special education classes. Relative to the teleiophilic offenders, both the pedophilic and the hebephilic groups showed approximately double the odds of failing a grade or being enrolled in special education, both before and after covarying IQ. No significant differences were detected between the teleiophilic offenders and the teleiophilic nonoffenders. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that an erotic age preference for children sometimes results from a perturbation of neurodevelopment occurring early in life.

White Matter Volumes in Pedophiles, Hebephiles, and Teleiophiles

“…On the one hand, previous studies using neuropsychological variables like IQ or related variables such as school failure (Cantor et al, 2006) could suggest that hebephiles are intermediate and in some sense''equidistant''from pedophiles and teleiophiles (e.g., Blanchard et al, 2007). On the other hand, children in Tanner Stages 2 and 3-the preferred sexual objects of hebephiles-might be perceived as physically more similar to children in the later years of Tanner Stage 1 than to fully mature individuals (Tanner Stage 5) by the average human observer.…”

“…A variety of findings suggests that neurodevelopmental perturbations in utero or during early childhood increase the risk of pedophilia (e.g., Cantor, Blanchard, Robichaud, & Christensen, 2005). For several relevant variables, hebephiles have produced means intermediate between those for pedophiles and those for teleiophiles (Blanchard et al, 2003Cantor, Klassen et al, 2005;Cantor et al, 2004Cantor et al, , 2006Cantor et al, , 2007.…”

Elevated rates of atypical handedness in paedophilia: Theory and implications

“…Paedophilia shows a greater departure from typical than does hebephilia (the erotic interest in pubescent children; Glueck, 1955) or teleiophilia in several other domains, including general intelligence (Cantor, Blanchard, Robichaud, & Christensen, 2005), grade failure and placement in special education classes (Cantor et al, 2006) and differences in self-reported height (Cantor et al, 2007). Therefore, we expected paedophiles would demonstrate higher rates of left-handedness than either of those groups, rather than elevated rates of ambiguous-handedness.…”

The relationship between schemas and offence supportive attitudes in mentally disordered sexual offenders

“…Cantor et al, 2006;Connolly & Woollons, 2008;Starzyk & Marshall, 2003)-characteristics which are established risk factors for offending recidivism (Hanson & Harris, 2000;Hanson & Morton-Bourgon, 2005). This suggests that some aspects of Sexual Offender Treatment Programmes (SOTPs) designed for non-MDSO populations may be beneficial for MDSOs.…”