The Effects of Child Sexual Abuse on Children with Autism

Stephen F Austin State University, Baker Pattillo Student Center

The purpose of conducting this research was to understand the effects of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) on children with autism, and how behaviors attributed with CSA easily get mistaken as behaviors attributed with autism, leaving them more vulnerable to CSA. The research question used in this study is: How does Child Sexual abuse affect children with autism? This paper is a systematic review, which entailed using a sampling of professional and scholarly articles published in recent years to answer a question or understand a subject matter, in this context being the effects of CSA, with the focus demographic being children with autism. In searching for related articles, inclusion criteria were used that included topics such as the prevalence of child sexual abuse, the effects, and other related terms, with exclusion criteria being adult sexual abuse (sexual abuse taking place after turning eighteen). During this research, the measurement tools of PRISMA and AMSTAR were used to further assess and ensure the relevance of the articles to this research paper. As a result of the research conducted, it was deduced that children with autism are at a higher risk of being a victim of sexual abuse than a child without due to their functional impairments in social interaction and communication. Furthermore, with these findings, research indicates that individuals with ASD may require additional support, education, and protection that they are currently not receiving. The lack of research regarding the subject matter also indicates the need for more research on the subject of CSA in children with autism, of which this paper hopes to contribute to.