Assessing the Concealed: A Nomenclature for Technology-Facilitated Youth Sexual Abusers

This commentary presents a framework guided by contemporary research for the new area of the field of sexual abuse: technology-facilitated youth sexual abusers (TFYSA), extrapolated from studies one representative validation and cross-validation samples (totaling 3,901 youth). The samples were employed in validating a risk assessment tool for youth (adjudicated and non-adjudicated) who engage in persistent coarse sexual improprieties and/or sexually abusive behaviors. The artifacts for the nomenclature for TFYSA were also extrapolated by victims' reports from several sources providing information and descriptive variables of the perpetrators of their trauma. Thus, the combined information on sexual development of youth from the Zeitgeist era, the validation study samples in a risk assessment study, coupled with the information provided by victims who suffered sexual trauma (i.e. direct contact and online), are the primary source data to create the nomenclature for TFYSA.