Page 73 - Aug Sept 2016

A Case for Specialized and Specific Intervention and Treatment Strategies with Abused Children
by either deliberately or spontaneously sexual abuse accommodation syndrome
telling someone, or they make an (CSAAS) to be quite valid. The effects

unintentional reference to the abuse. of CSAAS are generally accepted as
(Ceci, et al., p.75) While these could impacting the pattern of disclosure in a

be done for the first time in the particular case, with gradual disclosures,
presence of a child protection worker not to mention recantations quite common.
or police officer, they more likely are A very simple and unpublished experiment

done first in the presence of a trusted in a county in Pennsylvania asking five
adult. The time lapse between the child protection workers if they had ever

first telling and the second forensic heard of CSAAS yielded a negative
telling is a time frame that bears study response in all five. If those so closely
as to the emotional impact and time associated with child protection are not

impact on the child’s memory. This aware of valid supportive research that
becomes especially concerning in has been around for approximately twenty

child protective services that have years that so articulates child victim’s
extraordinarily large case loads in ratio experience, there indeed is much training
to workers, where time between report to do.

and questioning may be days, or even
weeks. Multiple cases presented sensationally
in the media attest to the importance
In addition, such aspects as linguistic of questioning techniques. The use of

problems associated with the child’s leading questions that are posed in a
developmental level and cultural manner assuming a specific answer, or

environment add to the challenge questions that are too complex for the
of accuracy. (Ceci, et al. p. 76) One child’s age are common examples of
also needs to consider the variable of problematic methods that can cause the

culture, ethnicity, and quite possibly child to offer often elaborate confabulated
religious background. Should the material. (Wrightsman, 2005) Such

forensic investigator be less than inadequate methods that ignore the child’s
sensitive, or just perhaps ignorant of a developmental level can produce dramatic,
particular culture, response of the child hysterical reactivity in the community, as

would quite conceivably be altered. in the case of People v Raymond Buckey.
A number of collected studies indicate that
In cases of sexual abuse, London, children do make commission errors about
Bruck, Ceci, and Shuman (2005) things they have never experienced, and

conducted research that found child can create fantastic, well-constructed,

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