{"id":499,"date":"2012-05-14T16:30:03","date_gmt":"2012-05-14T16:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=499"},"modified":"2015-12-30T16:33:04","modified_gmt":"2015-12-30T16:33:04","slug":"though-others-perceptions-have-changed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=499","title":{"rendered":"‘Though others’ perceptions have changed….’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"120514Faller\"May 14, 2012<\/p>\n

Mary De Young\u2019s engrossing bibliography \u201cThe Ritual Abuse Controversy\u201d lists page after page of books and journal articles that accept wholeheartedly the existence of an epidemic of ritual abuse in day cares during the \u201980s and early \u201990s.<\/p>\n

Roland Summit, Ann Burgess, Susan Kelley, David Finkelhor, etc., all used their professional credentials to support and spread the panic. But who among them has since acknowledged that it was all baloney? And that it left behind hundreds of profoundly damaged child-witnesses, families and defendants?<\/p>\n

When I asked Dr. Finkelhor about the now-discredited foundation of \u201cNursery Crimes,\u201d he replied that \u201cThis was a while ago, and I have not revisited the case. Our research did not conduct any independent review of the evidence, but simply coded the conclusion of the investigator we interviewed. I was neither an authority about the validity of claims at the time or at the present.\u201d<\/p>\n

Am I wrong to expect a higher level of professional accountability?<\/p>\n

Mostly, by the turn of the latest century the alarmists had simply withdrawn from the arena. Like Dr. Finkelhor, they had moved on to other topics and \u201cnot revisited the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

One exception is Kathleen Coulborn Faller, professor of children and families in the School of Social Work at the University of Michigan.<\/p>\n

In \u201cUnderstanding and Assessing Child Sexual Maltreatment\u201d (second edition, 2003), Dr. Faller writes, \u201cThough others\u2019 perceptions of the problems of sexual abuse in day care have changed, mine essentially have not.\u201d Minimizing the work of next-generation researchers such as Ceci and Bruck, she cites approvingly such works as Kelley\u2019s \u201cParental Stress Response to Sexual Abuse and Ritualistic Abuse in Day-Care Centers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Might Dr. Faller have changed her mind over the past decade?<\/p>\n

Last week I asked her. So far she hasn\u2019t replied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 14, 2012 Mary De Young\u2019s engrossing bibliography \u201cThe Ritual Abuse Controversy\u201d lists page after page of books and journal articles that accept wholeheartedly the existence of an epidemic of ritual abuse in day cares during the \u201980s and early \u201990s. Roland Summit, Ann Burgess, Susan Kelley, David Finkelhor, etc., all used their professional credentials […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=499"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":501,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions\/501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}