Pilot Evaluation of a Sexual Abuse Prevention Program for Taiwanese Children

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to develop and evaluate the efficacy of a school-based child sexual abuse prevention program for Taiwanese children. Forty-six Taiwanese children age 6 to 13 were divided into one of two groups based on their school grade and then randomly assigned to a skills-based child sexual abuse prevention program who received training immediately or a waiting-list control condition who received the training after a delay. Children's self-protection skills improved regardless of age after participation in the program. The program, however, did not successfully improve children's knowledge of sexuality and safety. Although future studies should modify the program content to better target knowledge of sexuality and safety, these results are promising for a pilot of this skills-based CSA prevention program in Taiwan.

Keywords:

• efficacy
• sexuality
• self-protection
• abductive situation
• behavioral skills training

Acknowledgments

Funding for this research was provided by Grant NSC 97-2410-H-194-092 from the National Science Council, Taiwan. The authors would like to thank the Student Counseling Center of Ming-Hsiung Elementary School, Chia-Yi, Taiwan for referrals and for providing equipment, resources, and laboratory spaces. Several individuals also played key roles in this project: Chiu-Tien Hsu, a licensed clinical psychologist, served as one of the group trainers, and several research assistants, Ke-Jui Lin, Pai-I Lin, Yu-Chi Chung, Chao-Xian Wu, and Tsai-Wei Lo, devoted valuable time and assistance in data collection and entry.

Notes

¹ To determine whether children receiving the delayed CSA prevention training showed improvements in knowledge over and above that observed from Pretest 1 to Pretest 2, repeated measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted. CWIST ASIS scores for children overall increased significantly from Pretest 1 to Pretest 2, t(22) = 2.47, p < .05, and from Pretest 1 to posttest, t(22) = 2.15, p < .05, but not from Pretest 2 to posttest, t (22) = –1.00, p > .05. CWIST TSS scores for children overall increased significantly from Pretest 1 to posttest, t(22) = 2.62, p < .05, and from Pretest 2 to posttest, t(22) = 3.40, p < .01, but not from Pretest 1 to Pretest 2, t (22) = .60, p > .05. Similarly, significant increases for the late elementary school children were noted in the CWIST TSS scores from Pretest 1 to posttest, t(12) = 2.63, p < .05, and from Pretest 2 to posttest, t(12) = 4.92, p < .01, but not from Pretest 1 to Pretest 2, t(12) = .39, p > .05.