Research has shown difficulties for younger children in learning to discriminate potentially abusive situations related to cognitive development, moral development, and relationships with authority. Current measures of child sexual abuse (CSA) prevention knowledge attempt to test children’s ability to discriminate an abusive event and react with appropriate preventative responses. However, if younger children are not learning skills taught in the first step, recognition, they may be confused or hesitant with the subsequent steps. This study focused on recognition and addressed accuracy of child reporting by teaching anatomically correct terminology and using discrimination training. It examined the crucial elements involved in training the recognition or discrimination phase in personal safety programs. The methods used were safety rules and multiple exemplars presented within a discrete trial teaching model. Study results suggest that children can learn to discriminate abusive from non-abusive situations using a rule-governed approach while programming for generalization using multiple exemplars in a discrete trial teaching format. The results also lend support to CSA prevention research showing that younger children can learn prevention knowledge and skills and maintain these gains. References