Research Reviews Found No Direct Evidence That Education Programs Prevent the Occurrence of Child Sexual Abuse

Fifteen of the 16 research reviews concluded that there was no evidence from the empirical studies they reviewed that demonstrated the effectiveness of education programs in actually preventing the occurrence of child abuse. Eight of the reviews concluded that these programs were effective in teaching children skills, such as saying no or leaving the scene. Limitations in Outcome Measures

A majority of the research reviews noted that the outcome measures used in evaluation studies were not valid indicators of prevention. Such measures are widely used, both to test for gains in knowledge about sexual abuse and to test whether children say they will use the self-protection strategies that they have learned in education programs. Eight of the reviews noted that some studies failed to pretest children on measures of knowledge and skills, or on measures of fear and anxiety, before exposing them to the education program. A number of reviews identified inadequate follow-up periods. Conclusions

A growing number of studies are being done on the effectiveness of child sexual abuse education programs, many of which were assessed in the research reviews described and synthesized in this report. However, nearly all these reviews reported that definitive conclusions could not be drawn because no study yet had developed measures of whether these programs were effective in reducing the incidence of child sexual abuse. There was consensus that to demonstrate the effectiveness of sexual abuse education programs more and better research would be required.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed research results on programs designed to educate children on how to avoid becoming victims of sexual abuse.

What GAO Found

GAO found that: (1) of the numerous studies that are being done on the effectiveness of child sexual abuse education programs, there is no direct evidence that any of these programs are effective in reducing the incidence of child sexual abuse; (2) although the research focused on whether children could acquire knowledge about sexual abuse and learn skills to avoid abusive situations, it was not clear whether children actually retained or used the knowledge they acquired in these programs; (3) research reviews agreed that these programs were most effective in teaching concepts to older children and when using active rather than passive methods; (4) definitive conclusions regarding program effectiveness could not be drawn because of numerous methodological limitations; (5) the outcome measures used in the evaluation studies were not valid indicators of prevention because many of the results were self-reported and outcome measures were not standardized; (6) many of the research studies lacked comparison groups, did not pretest children's knowledge, skills, and anxiety prior to their entrance into programs, and had inadequate follow-up periods; and (7) better research is needed to demonstrate the effectiveness of sexual abuse education programs.