Assessing Child Sexual Abuse Disclosures, Essay Example

An overwhelming number of child sexual abuse cases that come to the attention of CPS and law enforcement are prompted by children’s verbal disclosures of abuse.  Only a small minority of such cases involves corroboration by strong or conclusive evidence of abuse (confessions, physical evidence, photo/video documentation, eyewitness corroboration).  During the 1980’s media coverage of cases involving unfounded accusations of sexual abuse made by children (as in the McMartin pre-school case) and assertions of high rates of false sexual abuse accusations in custody disputes led to widespread concern about the reliability of children’s disclosures of sexual abuse.  Given the implications of misjudging the credibility of such disclosures, over the past 25 years, a great deal of attention has been dedicated to the issue.

One outcome of research that has focused on the credibility of children’s statements is a growing consensus that, notwithstanding limitations due to age and level of development, children are just as likely as adults to report events accurately and truthfully.  Some researchers further suggest that spontaneous disclosures of sexual abuse by children, in and of themselves, are highly probative of abuse.  That being said, another point of consensus in the field is the degree to which children’s suggestibility and vulnerability to adult influence can impact the accuracy and truthfulness of children’s statements.  Given this consideration, attempts to assess the credibility of children’s disclosures of sexual abuse have focused in several areas.

First, there has been considerable research concerning best practices for conducting forensic interviews of children that minimize adult influence.  It appears, based on the research, that structured interview protocols that utilize elements of narrative practice, clearly explained guidelines and non-leading, open-ended questioning insure the best quality and accuracy of content. Additionally, a great deal of emphasis has been placed on efforts to develop criteria derived from the content of children’s verbal disclosures that distinguish true and false accounts of child sexual abuse.  While methods of criterion-based content analysis (CBCA) have demonstrated an ability to distinguish between plausible and implausible reports, their level of accuracy and lack of general acceptance in the scientific community limits their application and usefulness.

A more traditional method of assessing the credibility of children’s disclosures of sexual abuse involves a comprehensive assessment model that utilizes multiple sources of information and seeks to validate disclosures of abuse by looking at the presence of multiple indicators which serve to support (or not support) the possibility that abuse has taken place.  Such indicators include content of verbal disclosures and case specifics that can be specifically corroborated or compared to commonly shared characteristics of sexual abuse cases.  While little or no research exists concerning the level of credibility such indicators lend to child abuse disclosures, literature does suggest that certain behavioral indicators and indicators of trauma can be highly suggestive of abuse.  The presence of medical evidence of abuse, while relatively rare, may also produce strong to conclusive evidence of abuse.  Psychological testing and projective  indicators of abuse (like sexualized doll play) appear to be of questionable or limited value to the degree that they reinforce the credibility of child abuse disclosures.  Finally, assessment of the credibility of the content of sex offender statements (as they relate to the credibility of children’s disclosures of abuse) appears to be an area lacking in research.

Additional research is necessary to better determine the diagnostic value of sexual abuse indicators and the degree to which the co-occurrence of such indicators increases the probability of abuse.  Because of the complex and varying dynamics of child sexual abuse cases, it is unlikely a universal tool for measuring the plausibility of children’s sexual abuse disclosures will be developed that can be reliably applied in all cases.  At the present time, best practice appears to lie in the utilization of free narrative structured forensic interview models administered by well-trained, well-supervised, skilled and experienced forensic interviewers dedicated to the task.  The continued use of comprehensive assessment protocols that rely on multiple sources of information, hypothesis testing and corroboration of case specifics appears to be the best approach for arriving at balanced, methodical and objective judgments regarding the credibility of child sexual abuse disclosures.