Parents' observations of sexual behaviour in pre‐school children

Abstract

This commentary on the Larsson and Svedin study of sexual behaviour in pre-school children, published in the present issue of Acta Paediatrica, centres around three questions: 1. How can normal sexual behaviour in children be distinguished from problematic behaviour? 2. What characterizes the sexual development of the normal child? 3. Can knowledge about normal and problematic sexual behaviour be used to screen for sexual abuse or to confirm cases of sexual victimization? It is recommended that the inventory used by the authors be standardized on a representative sample of Swedish children, because this would enhance its usefulness in distinguishing normal from problematic behaviour. It is further recommended that research about sexual development in children be based on person-oriented rather than on variable-oriented analyses. It is finally argued that knowledge about normal and problematic sexual behaviour may not contribute to more effective screening or confirmation procedures in suspicions of sexual abuse. However, knowledge about normal sexual behaviour is valuable in studies of sexual behaviour in different categories of children, e.g. in the developmentally delayed or psychosocially deprived. By helping to identify problematic sexual behaviour in individual children, a standardized inventory could guide professionals in detecting possible psychological problems accompanying the behaviour.