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Literature summary of lectures 1 to 4 on Forensic aspects of child abuse
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A literary summary of the accompanying articles from lectures 1 to 4 in the course of forensic aspects of child abuse.
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Aantekeningen Forensische aspecten van kindermishandelingWeek 1
Disclosure of child sexual abuse ~ London K. et al.
The child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome (CSAAS) = a theoretical model that posits that
sexually abused children frequently display secrecy, tentative disclosures, and retractions of abuse
statements.
- This model was developed to explain why children may not disclose intrafamilial abuse.
Five components:
1. Secrecy
2. Helplessness
3. Entrapment and accommodation
4. Delayed, conflicted and unconvincing disclosures
5. Retraction of disclosure
Two separate aspects of the model:
1. The psychological consequences of abuse ( fear, blame, and accommodation)
2. The consequences that these psychological states have on behavior (secrecy, denial and
recantation)
Predictors of nondisclosure
- CSA disclosure was more likely when the perpetrator was a stranger rather than a family
member (Hanson et al. & Smith et al.)
- Ussher and Dewberry reported longer delays to disclosure among intra- versus nonfamilial
abuse.
- Five studies failed to find an association between relationship to perpetrator and CSA
disclosure.
- No systematic relationships have been reported between demographic variables, such as
race and ethnicity and childhood disclosure rates. However, most of the retrospective studies
have too little variability in their sample’s
- In general, the data do not support the hypothesis that disclosure rates are related to
severity of abuse.
The failure to provide operational definitions of threats is problematic on methodological grounds.
Limiting aspects of the adult retrospective literature:
1. The design raises concerns about the accuracy of the informant’s reports
a. Some adults may had been abused but continued to deny abuse.
b. Some adult had not been abused but claimed to have been.
c. Some adult may have disclosed abuse in childhood, despite their reports to the
contrary.
2. Although the studies indicate that delayed disclosure or silence is common among sexually
abused children, these studies are uninformative as to the frequency that abused children
deny or recant abuse reports.
Delay of disclosure
, - When children do disclose, it often takes them a long time to do so
o Boys may be more reluctant to disclose than girls
o Hispanic girls waited longer to disclose than African American girls
Rates of disclosure (Denial)
We focus on four factors that account for the enormous between-study variability in
disclosure/denial rates in order to highlight methodological and design factors that need to be
considered in evaluating the generalizability, validity and reliability of the findings. These factors are:
- Age of the child: there is no objective age cutoff that can be inferred from the literature.
- Previous disclosure of abuse: prior disclosure of abuse predicts disclosure during formal
assessment.
- Substantiation of abuse: children may deny because they in fact never were abused; children
may take a long time to disclose because it is only with repeated suggestive interviewing that
they will make disclosures that are false; and children may recant in order to correct their
prior false disclosures.
- Representativeness of the selected sample: in order to examine the rates of disclosure
among sexually abused children who are questioned about abuse, the sample in question not
only should have substantiated diagnoses of sexual abuse but also should not be selected on
the basis of their preinterview disclosure patterns.
Sorensen and Snow (1991) the results of this study are uninterpretable because of the nature of the
“validated” cases, as well as in the apparently biased and suggestive interviewing/therapeutic
techniques.
- Children originally denied having been abused, they eventually disclosed and they also
recanted because they wanted to restate the truth.
The Laswon and Chaffin (1992) study, limitations:
- The sample of 28 children is unusual because they may represent the small hard core of
children who do not disclose abuse when directly asked. These results are not generalizable
to the entire population of children with STD’s
- Very few children who have been sexually abused have any physical symptoms or STD’s, and
thus this sample again is not representative of the CSA population.
- Their mother were first informed of the STD diagnosis of their children. Children whose
mothers accepted the possibility of abuse were more likely to disclose.
There are fewer studies on recantations than on denials or disclosures of sexual abuse. There could
be two different interpretations of recantation:
1. The child is withdrawing a true statement of abuse
2. The child is withdrawing a false allegation of abuse
Barriers and facilitators to disclosing sexual abuse in childhood and adolescence ~
Lemaigre et al.
Introduction:
- Disclosure has been found to be more likely when the abuse is extra-familial. However, not
all studies agree.
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