The Importance of Knowing Child Sexual Abuse Symptoms in the Elementary Teacher’s Work
Robert Osadan, Elizabeth Reid

Abstract
This paper is a survey of the literature on symptoms of child sexual abuse or molest, examining consensus and disparity among the sources. There are many lists of possible child sexual abuse symptoms. This paper aims to find the areas of agreement, determine the areas of disagreement and to compile a useable list of possible symptoms of children who have been sexually abused. Often these lists are similar to lists of symptoms of children undergoing emotional trauma, such as divorce of the parents or moving to a new city. Our aim is to compile a list of common symptoms of childhood trauma and to isolate symptoms that are specific to school-age victims of child sexual abuse or child molestation who are six to twelve years of age. Society likes to think that child molestation is relatively rare. Statistics show this is not so. While the figures vary, an average of them indicates that one out of every three girls and one out of every five boys will be sexually abused before they reach age eighteen (The Advocacy Center, "The Facts About Youth Sexual Abuse" http://www.theadvocacycenter.org/adv_abuse.html). Up to 95% of child molestations can be prevented. Talking to children honestly, and from an early age. about not letting others touch their private parts and telling them that it is appropriate to tell an adult if someone tries, can go a long way to stopping this social problem.

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