Children's perceptions of the risk of sexual abuse

Research to date has not examined children's perceptions of the risk of sexual abuse, and how those perceptions change following participation in a prevention program. This study assessed children's current perceptions of the risk of sexual abuse, changes in children's perceptions of risk after participation in a sexual abuse prevention program, and age differences in children's beliefs about risk. The findings indicate that children's already high perceptions of the risk of sexual abuse increased after participation in a prevention program, and that their predictions of abuse by strangers increased after the program. However, children's predictions of the likelihood of sexual abuse in specific videotaped scenarios was quite low. Younger children had lower perceptions of risk than older children and their perceptions of the likelihood of abuse in the videotaped scenarios remained lower than the perceptions of older children even after the intervention program. In addition, children perceived differences in the risk-levels of various situations, but the factors they used to discriminate risk were not necessarily related to real risks. The findings are discussed in relation to the larger issue of how children's perceptions of the risk of sexual abuse are related to the goals of prevention programs.