![\"111125Talbot\"](\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/111125Talbot.jpg\")
April 10, 2013<\/p>\nApril 10, 2013<\/p>\n
\u201cConsider the use of anatomically detailed dolls to prompt shy or frightened children to reveal abuse. This was an innovation of the 1970s, and at first it certainly seemed like an effective and compassionate one.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut more recent studies have cast doubt on whether these dolls prompt more accurate recall, especially for the pre-schoolage children for whom they are usually deployed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe doll is supposed to be a body double for the child him- or herself; but since the vast majority of children this age lack the symbolic thinking required to make such a connection\u2013 most two- and three-year-olds, for example, cannot see the relation between a room and a scale model of it \u2013 this proposition turns out to be rather dubious.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore to the point, it seems that some children who have not been sexually abused will also play with an anatomically detailed doll in sexually suggestive ways \u2013 promptly removing its clothes, touching or grabbing its \u2018genitals,\u2019 sticking their fingers into various orifices. As the authors of one study judiciously put it, the \u2018average amount of sexualized doll play by presumably non-abused children is not alarming, but there is enough of it to be potentially problematic in clinical or forensic situations.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cIn other words, if you are prepared to see signs of abuse, you may see them even in behavior that, in other contexts or at other times, would be attributed to normal sexual curiosity.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd this is precisely the issue: At a time when there was comparatively little data available on what constituted normal sexuality in children, this vacuum was filled by people with a very narrow view of the possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 From \u201c<\/em>Against Innocence<\/em><\/a>: The truth about child abuse and the truth about children\u201d\u00a0by Margaret Talbot in The New Republic (March 15, 1999)<\/em><\/p>\n Prosecution therapists in the Little Rascals case made extensive use of anatomically correct dolls. During Bob Kelly\u2019s trial, therapist Janet Hadler of Chapel Hill showed a video clip of a 5-year-old girl pressing together the pelvises of a male and a female doll. \u201cChildren who are demonstrating explicit sexual contact,\u201d\u00a0Hadler testified<\/a>\u00a0confidently, \u201care doing that because they have some knowledge of adult sexual behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" April 10, 2013 \u201cConsider the use of anatomically detailed dolls to prompt shy or frightened children to reveal abuse. This was an innovation of the 1970s, and at first it certainly seemed like an effective and compassionate one. \u201cBut more recent studies have cast doubt on whether these dolls prompt more accurate recall, especially for […]<\/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-910","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\/910","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=910"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":911,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910\/revisions\/911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}