Behavioural Skills Training (BST) for Teaching Sexual Abuse Prevention Skills for Children with Intellectual Disabilities

Summary

The main goal of the study was to see if Behavioural Skills Training (BST) could improve knowledge about sexual abuse and the ability to resist it among children with intellectual disabilities. This study also evaluated any negative effects of the programme on children with intellectual disabilities. There were two groups, one group received a training programme which was delivered as three one-hour sessions in a week over 12 weeks. The Behavioral Skills Training (BST) module was structured into ten lessons, each conveyed through engaging stories and corresponding illustrations. The training commenced with teaching children general safety topics such as poison, fire, pedestrian, and vehicle safety. This served as an initial step to establish comfort.

Subsequently, the module transitioned to imparting knowledge on body safety rules. This included educating children on stranger safety and private parts, understanding appropriate and inappropriate touches, and teaching them self-protection skills. Videos were used to show appropriate and inappropriate situations effectively, and training sessions involved role-playing scenarios. Another group received the usual sex education offered by teachers at school. After completing training students were assessed for their knowledge regarding sexual abuse and their self-protection skills (ability to say no, remove themselves from the situation, identify a person to whom the incident can be reported and report the incident and identify the offender. This was assessed based on the situations presented in a video. Children were tested one week after the training, at one-month, three-month and six-month intervals to see whether they could retain the information and skill. Their knowledge and self-protection skills improved after attending the programme and it was retained for six months. Participation in the programme did not cause any negative effects among children with intellectual disabilities.

Conditions

• Intellectual Disability, Mild to Moderate
• Sexual Abuse

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Behavioural Skill Training Programme

BST was administered in 3 sessions in a week on alternate days, each session lasting for an hour. Training was given in small groups consisting of 4-6 members. Parents were involved as co-therapists, and observed the training given by the researcher and practiced it at home with their children. The training was carried out through the following steps: 1. Instruction- Involved teaching the location of private parts, difference between appropriate and inappropriate touch, safe and unsafe secrets, sexuality, self-protection skills (saying NO, move from situation, tell trusted person, report the person and situation. 2. Modelling- researcher, modelled, correct responses, and instructed to act in the unsafe situation using role play. Situations were presented using video. 3. Rehearsal-researcher presented situations using video and instructed to rehearse the skills until able to demonstrate the skill independently

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, India

  collaborator OTHER

• University of Canberra

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Dr.Natasha Jojo, PhD · University of Canberra

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

10 Years

Max Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2016-08-08

Primary Completion

2017-03-11

Completion

2017-03-11