Preparatory Statements and Disclosing Child Sexual Abuse in Forensic Interviews: A Retrospective Study from an Arizona Child Advocacy Center

Child sexual abuse is common in the United States, with an estimated 27% of girls and 5% of boys reporting experiencing child sexual abuse before the age of 18. Occurrences of sexual abuse are grossly underreported, if at all. Recently, researchers have looked more closely at children’s disclosure of sexual abuse and best practices to optimize the safety and well-being of the child. Identifying and acknowledging the reasons that encourage or discourage child sexual abuse disclosures can help victims disclose sooner, access treatment sooner, prevent additional sexual victimization, and safeguard others from harm. Although research exists on the forensic interview process for reporting child sexual abuse, this dissertation takes a unique approach to study children’s decisions to disclose sexual abuse during investigative interviews. Paper 1 aimed to systematically identify and describe the types of preparatory statements caregivers provided to children before forensic interviews. Paper 2 examined the association between caregivers’ preparatory statements and other factors that may impact disclosure rates. Paper 3 provided and encouraged the widespread adoption of an integrated, feminist-based ecological systems framework that guided this dissertation study from conceptualization to interpretive analysis. A Child Advocacy Center provided 322 child sexual abuse forensic interviews and intake paperwork from children and their caregivers. To meet the inclusion criteria, children had to be between 4 and 17 when they reported being sexually abused, possess language proficiency, and take part in forensic interviews regarding sexual abuse conducted by forensic interviewers between 2015 and 2018. The first paper used content analysis to explore and categorize the types of preparatory statements caregivers provided to children. The second paper used a stepwise regression analysis that integrated the preparatory statement results from Paper 1 and child characteristics. This dissertation's third paper proposed a conceptual framework using feminist and ecological systems theory to approach child sexual abuse research. The main takeaway from this study is that children were more likely to make a formal disclosure if their caregiver provided transparent preparatory statements before a forensic disclosure.