Editors’ summary

This chapter introduces the concept of the continuum of disclosure, which describes the path that child victims have to travel before they are able to disclose their abuse. Some factors help them to progress along the path, such as their own maturity, the availability of an advocate, and feeling they are safe; while other factors impede them, for example immaturity, loyalty to the abuser, threats and pressure to remain silent, accommodation to abuse over a long period, and dissociation. Removal from home might move a child in either direction, depending on the circumstances. Abused children are seen as falling into three groups: a minority who disclose readily, those who require facilitation over a period of time before they can disclose, and those who remain unable to disclose.

Introduction

This chapter provides a framework within which to address the task of intervention. Its perspective is that the abused child's developmental level crucially influences the process of disclosure. Increased awareness of alerting signs and symptoms, together with developments in the medical diagnosis, may prompt investigation in a wide range of children, not all of whom will have made a disclosure or allegation. A sophisticated and flexible framework is needed to respond effectively to the diversity and apparent contradictions in children's reactions to what may appear from an adult standpoint to be the same situation. An additional complication is that the evaluation will often take place in an adversarial context.

Medical findings suggestive of anal penetration may be the starting point of investigation for several children. In one case there may be a vigorous denial by both the young child and possible perpetrator. A vigorous assertion that the medical findings are erroneous can lead to the explanation that the investigation produced a ‘false positive’. In another, a child (again young) who spontaneously gives a recognizable account of anal penetration may be seen as confirming the precisely similar medical findings. An older child may make a hesitant statement of an activity which does not tally with the medical findings and then ‘confess’ to having lied.