Although they may not show the symptoms at first, children who have suffered sexual abuse modify their mental structure in a radical way after the assault. This way, if they do not receive treatment or get in touch with someone who can help them, they will have problems which may manifest themselves in a symptomatology or an inadequate perception of things years later. According to José Cantón, of the University of Granada, “there is a complete distortion of the reality and the victim can come to justify the behaviour of the aggressor or to keep silent about it”.
As regards the first symptoms in younger victims, Cantón emphasizes “sexualized behaviour, this is, a suggestive approach to other children and adults or even compulsive masturbation. Older victims show other kind of problems such as anxiety, depression or self-esteem and, at the same time, antisocial behaviour”.
In order to collect data anonymously, surveys with open questions have been distributed to more than 1200 persons to obtain the maximum information. About 150 of them had suffered sexual abuse before 16 years old. There are many variables at play so that some of them suffer the consequences more than others depending on the features of the abuses suffered and especially on variables such as emotional reaction, the way of dealing with the experience or the attribution of responsibility. The main objective of the study supervised by José Cantón, of the research group Development in risk contexts, is getting to know what affects these processes.
The final aim is designing prevention programs of these practices which consider most of the circumstances at play. The program considers the age of the aggressor and the victim, the circumstances and seriousness of the aggression, the places, the strategies to approach the victim and make him keep silent about the assault.
Broken homes
The Department of Evolutionary and Education Psychology of the University of Granada is also working on domestic violence (problems developed by children and adolescents who are the witness of the conflicts between their parents or who suffer from battering). In the first case, the have focused on how the consequences vary according to the features of the conflicts and the harmful impact to children.
With regard to research on child-battering, it has focused on a sample of children taken out of their homes and institutionalized for this reason. The basic goal of the research work has been to prove the different impact of the different ways of abuse on the child.
Finally, the research work has also analysed the difficulties of children whose parents are separated or divorced to get over this situation and adapt to a single-parent home. Using a sample of more than 100 families, they are analysing the different reactions depending on sex and age, or the alterations of certain variables such as the conflicts between parents after the divorce.
Further information: Prof José Cantón Duarte.
Department of Evolutionary and Education Pshychology.
E-mail: jcanton@ugr.es
Phone number: 958 246238 / 243968.
