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J Child Fam Stud (2015) 24:480490 DOI 10.1007/s10826-013-9860-9
ORIGINAL PAPER
Exploring the Link Between Child Sexual Abuse and Sexually Intrusive Behaviors: The Moderating Role of Caregiver Discipline Strategy
Natasha E. Latzman Robert D. Latzman
Published online: 20 November 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York (outside the USA) 2013
Abstract Although it has been well documented that children who experience child sexual abuse (CSA) are at increased risk for developing sexually intrusive behaviors (SIB), there is considerable heterogeneity in symptom presentation. With the aim of elucidating potential moderating factors that both exacerbate and attenuate outcomes following CSA, the current study investigated caregiver discipline strategy as one potential factor that may moderate the relationship between CSA and SIB. Participants included 986 eight-year-old children (51.4 % female) drawn from the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect consortium. Child maltreatment histories were collected every 2 years starting at age 4, and caregiver discipline strategies and SIB were assessed at age 8. Results conrm the lack of a simple pathway between CSA and SIB and indicate that caregiver discipline strategy may represent a unique moderator for both exacerbating and attenuating risk for SIB following CSA. Specically, for girls with a history of CSA, caregiver use of adaptive discipline resulted in lower levels of SIB, whereas care-giver use of physical discipline resulted in higher levels of SIB. The present study contributes to the ongoing discourse regarding the treatment of children who have experienced CSA and etiological pathways associated with the development of SIB.
Keywords Child sexual abuse Child sexual
behavior problems Parenting Discipline Child
maltreatment
Introduction
It has been well-documented that children who have experienced sexual abuse are at risk for maladaptive outcomes, including the display of developmentally inappropriate, intrusive, and sometimes aggressive sexual behaviors (Kendall-Tackett et al. 1993; Putnam 2003). However, there also appears to be considerable heterogeneity in symptom presentation, as many children do not exhibit problematic sexualized behaviors following sexual abuse. To better understand this diversity in outcome, research on the developmental consequences of child sexual abuse (CSA) has recently shifted from studying what goes wrong toward an examination of the context in which the development of psychopathology (Cicchetti and Toth 1995), including problematic sexualized behaviors, takes place. Further, researchers have also given increased attention to the...