Child Sexual Abuse

How do children disclose abuse? Definitive answers to this question are, unfortunately, difficult to find. A 1983, a study by Dr. Roland Summit entitled Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome was published. In it, the author hypothesized that the process of disclosure followed five different stages:

1. secrecy


2. helplessness


3. entrapment and accommodation


4. delayed, conflicted, and unconvincing disclosure


5. retraction

The basic premise of his theory was that, in the beginning, children keep sexual abuse a secret due to coercion from their attackers. In step 2, a continuing sense of helplessness would make them feel powerless to prevent it. Eventually, in step 3, these children would feel responsible for what was happening to them and that any negative consequences resulting from disclosure would be their fault. In step 4, disclosure would happen, but in problematic ways that would be difficult to prove. Finally, in step 5, it was theorized that most abuse victims would retract their claims in the face of public rejection and personal ambivalence.

At the time of Dr. Summit’s study, the early1980’s, public awareness of child sexual abuse was very different than it is today. The study claimed that many children were being revictimized by mental health and criminal justice systems that didn’t understand or know how to properly handle the dynamics of abuse cases. In the intervening years, a brighter light has been shone on the problem. Awareness has been heightened by advances in public health programs, mental health therapies, and in increased training of law enforcement and service agency personnel. Legislation has been passed in the interim that is increasingly protective of children in general and of victims in particular. It is now generally accepted that the process of disclosure is different for every child and subject to an extremely wide range of variability. Disclosure does not follow a systematic process.

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