Educo-Therapy: A New Approach to Delinquent Behavior

The most salient aspects of several different theories from education and psychology were considered and carefully worked into a treat-ment program to meet the needs of ten delinquent girls who were appraised by a group of several evaluators as having learning dis-abilities and/or behavior disturbances. This very intensive, in-depth intervention occupied their total life space for three months. Most of the behavioral changes were documented by subjective evaluations made by the institutional and project staff Educational improvements in reading performance and intellectual functioning are substantiated by post-test scores. The incidence of learning disabilities in school-age children has been cited from three to 40 percent. Because the delinquent child is so often a child who is an underachiever, who can't read, who can't relate in terms of language skills, and who leaves school early to find success elsewhere, it would seem reasonable to assume that an even higher incidence of learning disabilities would be found amon