Teaching Personal Safety

Abstract

Teaching personal safety skills involves educating children about their private body parts, boundaries with others, personal privacy, and ability to say "no" to touches they do not want or are inappropriate. Conceptualized as part of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) prevention, educating youth about personal safety typically consists of teaching children knowledge and skills related to recognizing, responding to, and reporting potentially abusive situations (three R's of prevention). Teaching personal safety skills considers the developmental and cognitive level of the child, and instruction can begin with very young children. Historical Background Childhood sexual abuse is a serious issue in the United States (USA). The latest figures estimate that approximately 57,964 children were confirmed victims of sexual abuse last year in the USA (US Department of Health and Human Services 2019). According to results from three administrations of the National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence, Finkelhor et al. (2014) reported an estimated prevalence of 27% for females and 5% for males, or approximately 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 20 boys. The results of CSA on youth are far reaching and can cause a multiplicity of emotional and behavioral problems into adulthood (Pérez-Fuentes et al. 2013). While all children are at risk of victimization, there are some characteristics that make certain children more vulnerable to sexual assault. One of those characteristics is the disability that children may experience, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Certain social-emotional and communication challenges, when present in children with ASD, may be interpreted by sexual offenders as vulnerabilities that they can exploit (Edelson 2010). Research has confirmed that children with disabilities are 2-3 times more likely to be sexually abused (including raped) than children without disabilities (Brown-Lavoie et al. 2014; Sullivan and Knutson 2000). Mandell et al. (2005) found that 16.6% of caregivers reported their child with ASD had been sexually abused. Brown-Lavoie et al. (2014) reported that 78% of their respondents with ASD reported at least one instance of sexual victimization, compared to 47% of a comparison group. There appears to be certain characteristics that children with ASD possess that may make them more vulnerable to abuse including lack of communication, limited understanding of personal boundaries, and difficulty interpreting others' intentions. Muccigrosso (1991) discusses

Question asking as a dyadic behavior.

“…(The error variance is for those at the intercept which is no one!)" (Kenny, 2017). b We used the residual scores from glmer function in lme4 in R to calculate this correlation.…”

“…Therefore, we used both analyses to reap maximum information from the data reported by Huang et al (2017). In addition, with the help of David Kenny, we wrote R code to analyze the dichotomous data (Kenny, 2017). 1 BLOCKO, and the ANOVA approach it applies, has two limitations.…”

Leadership without “the led”: a case study of the South Wales Valleys

“…Jack and Westwood, 2009; Liu, 2020) does not capture the complexities of this colonial heritage I am observing. The Celtic fringe nations have very different histories, some of which is being explored in the arts and humanities in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but a coherent body of Celtic postcolonial theory is yet to emerge (Jack, 2020, personal communication; Kenny, 2020, personal communication). I am thus coining a term, Celtic postcolonialism/decolonialism, that, as yet, requires study.Memories from childhood: my father singing, to the tune of the Red Flag, “the working class can kiss my arse, I've got the foreman's job at last”.…”