Individual and familial characteristics of sexual abuse victims with intellectual disability

Abstract

The objective of this study is to examine the characteristics of sexual abuse incidences amongst children and adults with an intellectual disability. Participants included 124 children and adults with intellectual disabilities and 54 children without an intellectual disability. According to the findings, individuals with an intellectual disability were much more exposed to violent sexual abuse than was the comparison group. Moreover, victims mostly experienced sexual abuse in adolescence and most made a delayed disclosure. As for family, almost all of them had a familial risk, and the most frequently encountered problems were low education level of parents, economic problems, early marriage of parents and broken family. In light of these findings, we recommend that preadolescent girls with intellectual disability be educated about the risk of sexual abuse.