NCJ Number
139824
Journal
Behavior Therapy Volume: 23 Dated: (1992) Pages: 375-387
Date Published
1992
Length
13 pages
Annotation
A child sexual abuse prevention program was evaluated to determine its effects on children with a history of sexual abuse were evaluated and to understand and compare the impacts of different evaluation measures.
Abstract
The program, "The Touch Continuum," was chosen because touch continuum curricula are used by approximately 75 percent of the commercially available sexual abuse prevention curricula. Three "knowledge" measures were used in the evaluation, including a previously used, reliable, forced-choice measure; open-ended questions; and a behavioral measure. It was expected that children would perform better on forced-choice questions than they would on open-ended questions or a behavioral measure. The participants were 16 females and 4 males aged 4 to 16. They had all been sexually abused, a majority extensively, and were currently involved in psychotherapy. The time since the last abuse ranged from 1 year to 5 years. The analysis revealed that in general, the prevention program failed to have positive or negative effects with these previously sensitized children. However, the most striking finding was that the three measures yielded somewhat different results. Measures using a yes/no format suggested that the lack of knowledge gains were because of ceiling effects, but open- ended questions showed low to moderate levels of understanding about sexual abuse, and role-plays suggested that children possessed less than half of the skills required to prevent abuse. This research used several precautions to ensure that children did not become distressed, and future research that uses role plays should also address both methodological and ethical concerns. Figure, table, and 18 references