Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

expressed fluently per se, the message is clear: looking at a picture is something entirely different than
being touched inappropriately. While the participant did recognize that Tommy should not have looked at
the picture, he asserts, nonetheless, that the degree of inappropriateness of looking at the stranger’s picture
is on a completely different level than being touched by the stranger: “you can’t feel anything if looking,”—
by simply “looking” at the picture, no inappropriate touching is taking place just yet, but “if touching,” the
child can “feel” the inappropriate touching, or abuse. The child is conveying that in and of itself, looking at
the “nameless picture with a drawing” is not abuse, but that seemingly harmless “looking” can escalade to
abuse by “touching.”
Implications
The implications of this study are in alignment with those of the 1991 study (Burkhardt 1991).
What are the implications of the current study with regards to the prevention of childhood sexual abuse? A
model of social and cognitive vulnerability to childhood sexual abuse offers several promising possibilities
for prevention for younger children. In order for a child to develop on the cognitive level, he or she must
interact with the environment. Therefore, creating educational opportunities involving social interactions
with adult authority figures could provide an arena for younger children to build, widen, and extend their
social reasoning capabilities.
Efforts to prevent childhood sexual abuse might best be served by focusing children’s focus upon
the distinctive social demands of an encounter involving abuse. Situational cues which distinguish
appropriate from in appropriate adult instructions should also be brought to the children’s attention.
Likewise, confusion and uncertainty a child may experience as he or she struggles to respond should be a
major focus of such efforts of educational abuse prevention programs. The inclusion of child-generated
strategies may serve to further the assimilation of the children to the preventive education lessons, therefore
increasing the probability that students would comprehend, retain, and employ what they have been taught.
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