Increasing awareness of protection from sexual abuse in children with mild intellectual disabilities: An education study

Abstract

Sexual abuse is an important problem for children and particularly those with intellectual disabilities. Increasing awareness of sexual abuse could help these children to protect themselves from such a potential encounter. The study was conducted to raise awareness about sexual abuse in children with intellectual disabilities with 15 children who had mild intellectual disabilities as a pre-posttest experimental design. Informative pictures, designed according to age and intellectual level, suitable stories linked with these pictures and homework, were used in an educational setting. It was determined that there was a significant difference relating to the scores for all the subjects before and after the assignment (p < 0.05). After education, awareness of them in protecting from a possible sexual abuse increased with protection educations for intellectual disabilities children, as desired. © 2017 Elsevier Inc.