Thought and Language Disorder among Sexually Abused Children in a Psychiatric Hospital

Abstract

The empirical literature offers evidence that childhood sexual abuse is a predictor of psychopathology in adults. However, the literature examining the relations between thought disorder and psychotic symptoms in children is sparse. Children with a history of childhood sexual abuse are expected to demonstrate more disturbances in thought relative to their peers with no childhood sexual abuse. Using the Thought and Language Index, Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) narratives for four commonly used TAT cards obtained from 39 closed charts of hospitalized children were analyzed. Narratives were assessed on seven dimensions including weakening of goals, perseveration, looseness, peculiar word usage, peculiar sentence construction, non-logical reasoning, and distractibility. Good inter-rater reliability was obtained. Sexually abused children had higher aberrant scores on card number four compared to non-abused children. Sexual abuse history was a predictive factor for non-logical reasoning, with small effect size. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.