Children's Conceptions of Personal Body Safety: A Comparison Across Ages

We investigated the developmental characteristics of normal children's conceptions about personal body safety. We read a projective vignette describing a personal body safety violation to 51 children in three developmentally distinct age groups (4- to 6 1/2-year-olds, 6 1/2 to 9 1/2-year-olds, and 9 1/2- to 12-year-olds) and asked the children questions about the vignette incident. The results indicated significant differences across age levels with regard to violations of personal body safety. In contrast, there was only one age-level difference in response to two control vignettes depicting violations of traffic and school safety rules. We discuss normal children's understanding and their current knowledge of personal body safety and offer suggestions for incorporating this information into sexual abuse prevention and treatment approaches.