Pursuant to the Specific Aims (SA) of the OVERALL section for the Hub, the RESEARCH PROJECT focuses on the OVERALL SA2, i.e., (1) identifying a subgroup of juvenile offenders placed in residential settings who are characterized by severe learning disabilities (LD) using big data approaches; (2) carrying out a novel mixed media (person-to-person plus person-to-computer) educational therapy; and (3) differentiating responders from nonresponders to academic therapy by tracking neurophysiological and epigenetic markers. Each of these SAs, in turn, unfolds into a network of research aims. Specifically, using historical (i.e., generated by a freeze from a historical dataset) big data from the Connecticut Court Support Services Division and the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department (estimated n of ~100,000 individual cases), we will initiate three interrelated inquiries: (1) to rigorously evaluate data quality and the statistical assumptions underlying the models that are applicable to big data; (2) to enable valid descriptive and causal inferences from large-scale algorithms applied to heterogeneous samples; and (3) to gain an understanding of the complexities of learning disabilities (LD) among delinquent youth through the statistical methods that capture developmental processes on multiple levels. The last inquiry will result in the development of an algorithm that will be applied to current data maintained on juveniles in the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department, to assist in the identification of, in total, 192 individuals (48 each year of the Hub) with severe LD. These individuals, in a nonconcurrent multiple baseline design, will be offered an educational therapy designed to address severe reading problems in juvenile detainees using a novel mixed media intervention in which the person-to-person intensive 1:1 component is completed while youth are in residential settings (24 sessions, delivered in 90 minute settings 3 times a week) and a ?gamified? educational iPad learning tool follow-up completed upon release (with appropriate network fidelity monitoring and participant reinforcement). The person-to-person component is developed specifically for juvenile offenders with severe LD, combining two well-established and highly- regarded intervention programs designed to systematically build students? repertoire of grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules as well as develop comprehensive reading skills, from beginning reading to proficiency. We anticipate, based on the literature, that the intervention, although its components have been convincingly demonstrated to be effective, will generate a spectrum of outcomes, with youth being more or less responsive to the intervention. To differentiate these outcomes, we will trace two sets of biomarkers thought to be associated with learning, i.e., neurophysiological and epigenetic markers, sampled throughout the intervention delivery. To evaluate the generalizability and durability of the intervention, we will also administer the intervention to 6 children per year in Years 1-4 of the projects (i.e., to 24 youth) in detention and probation centers in the state of Connecticut.
