NCJ Number
140045
Journal
Child Abuse and Neglect Volume: 16 Issue: 5 Dated: (September-October 1992) Pages: 727-733
Date Published
1992
Length
7 pages
Annotation
To determine whether professionals have a standard of what constitutes normal behavior with anatomically correct dolls, a sample of 201 people who work with child sexual abuse victims were asked to rate the normalcy of various behaviors with the dolls for nonabused children between the ages of 2 and 6.
Abstract
Most respondents agreed that they would consider it abnormal for nonabused children to demonstrate overtly sexual behaviors with the anatomically correct dolls. With more ambiguous behaviors, such as touching the dolls' genital areas, there was more disagreement among the professionals as to the meaning of these actions. The ratings of these less obvious behaviors by the professionals depended on their profession, gender, and number of years of experience. Police officers, women, and those with the least amount of experience were most likely to view ambiguous behaviors as being abnormal. To make evaluations of behavioral indicators as bias- and error-free as possible, future research should focus on identifying areas where professionals disagree about these behaviors and discerning factors that influence their judgments. 2 tables and 8 references