Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 1984;8(4):473-81.
doi: 10.1016/0145-2134(84)90029-2.

Is the child victim of sexual abuse telling the truth?

K C Faller
Free article

Is the child victim of sexual abuse telling the truth?

K C Faller. Child Abuse Negl. 1984.
Free article

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 lie 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: statements the child has made to other people about the sexual abuse; sexual content in the child's play, picture drawing or story telling; sexual behavior on the child's part; sexual knowledge beyond what one would expect for the child's age; and symptomatic behavior indicative of stress.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by