Children's abilities to recognize a "good" person as a potential perpetrator of childhood sexual abuse.
OBJECTIVE
This study examined the ability of children to recognize "good" people as potential perpetrators prior to and after completing a personal safety program. There were three objectives to the study. The first was to determine whether young children could recognize the inappropriateness of a sexual request coming from people described as either "good" or "bad." Second, the study examined whether preschoolers could be educated to recognize inappropriate touch requests regardless of the good/bad descriptor. Finally, we explored if children's ability to learn the recognition skill depended upon their age.


METHODS
Ninety-three, primarily Hispanic (72%) preschool children (M age=3.9 years) completed the Body Safety Training program (BST; Wurtele, 2007), a classroom-based behavioral program. They responded to questions about "good" and "bad" people requesting to touch their private parts prior to and after the educational program.


RESULTS
At pre-testing, children had more difficulty recognizing inappropriate touch requests when made by "good" people compared to "bad" people. After completing the BST program, children improved in their ability to recognize the inappropriateness of requests made by both "good" and "bad" people. At pretesting, correct responding varied across age groups, with a greater percentage of older children (age 5) correctly responding to the "bad" cases compared to 3- and 4-year olds. At post-testing, a marginally significant age difference was found for cases involving "good" people and significant differences were found for cases involving "bad" people. Almost all 4- and 5-year-old children (94% and 96%, respectively) correctly responded to these inappropriate requests compared with only 71% of the 3 year olds.


CONCLUSIONS
Pre-test results demonstrated that young children had difficulty recognizing the inappropriateness of a request when it was made by a "good" person. Post-test findings demonstrated that children as young as 3 years of age can learn the inappropriateness of such requests even when coming from "good" people, although 3 year olds had more difficulty recognizing inappropriate-touch requests compared to 4- and 5-year-old children.


CONCLUSIONS
Results support the challenge of helping young children learn to recognize potential perpetrators, especially those described as "good" people.
Kenny
Maureen C
MC
Florida International University, College of Education, Room 230A, University Park, Miami, FL 33199, USA.
Wurtele
Sandy K
SK
University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Department of Psychology, Colorado Springs, CO, USA.
D000367:Age Factors; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual / Q000517:prevention & control*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D057237:Criminals; D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D006266:Health Education / Q000379:methods*; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012449:Safety; D012574:Schools; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology