Is the child victim of sexual abuse telling the truth?

Abstract

In order to adequately investigate an allegation of sexual abuse, professionals must both understand the motives of the victim, perpetrator, and victim's mother (in incest cases) to he or tell the truth and possess the techniques for examining the child's story. Children almost never make up stories about being sexually abused. In fact victims are often revictimized in multiple ways for truthfully asserting they have been sexually abused. Perpetrators usually deny their abusive behavior. Mothers may also have reasons for not acknowledging the sexual abuse. Within this larger framework, the evaluator should systematically explore the allegation in order to assure the story is true. First, in examining the story, the evaluator looks for a detailed description of events surrounding the sexual abuse, explicit information about sexual behavior told from a child's viewpoint, and an emotional response consistent with their statement. Second, the evaluator buttresses the information with other data: (1) statements the child has made to other people about the sexual abuse; (2) sexual content in the child's play, picture drawing or story telling; (3) sexual behavior on the child's part; (4) sexual knowledge beyond what one would expect for the child's age; and (5) symptomatic behavior indicative of stress.