Sexual abuse and mental handicap: preliminary findings of a community‐based study

In recent years sexual abuse has been acknowledged by society at large to be a significant problem. However, very little has been written about sexual abuse of people with mental handicaps. This paper documents the findings of a three‐year study of 13 victims of sexual abuse each of whom had a mental handicap. Parallels are drawn with research knowledge of sexual abuse and its effects on “normal” victims. Any differences which emerged are noted. The major finding of this study is the possibility that behaviour problems and “acting out” behaviour of people with mental handicaps may be significant indicators of sexual abuse having taken place, in people who do not have the verbal skills to say to others what has happened to them. New areas of research are indicated to compare with this data.