Outline for the Development of a Screening Procedure for Children who Have Been Sexually Abused

Abstract

Objective Child sex abuse has become an increasingly well-researched phenomenon. Issues addressed include preconditions of abuse, short-term and long-term effects on the child, therapeutic interventions to help overcome the effects of abuse, and treatment of perpetrators. However, lack of reliable and nonintrusive detection and disclosure techniques remains a main obstacle for obtaining exact data regarding prevalence of child sex abuse, initiating effective treatment of the child, and ensuring adequate sentencing of the perpetrator. Method This article outlines the potential for a reliable and nonintrusive screening procedure based on the stimulus equivalence paradigm. Results The main issue addressed in three experiments was how current stimulus equivalence procedures may be refined to identify specific social experiences.