Open AccessContemporary Risk Assessment Tools: Should We Use Them for Sexually Abusive Children Ages 4 to 12 Years?
Author(s) -
L. C. Miccio-Fonseca
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of child and adolescent trauma
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.583
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1936-153X
pISSN - 1936-1521
DOI - 10.1007/s40653-019-00267-z
Subject(s) - normative , sexual abuse , risk assessment , medicine , suicide prevention , human factors and ergonomics , injury prevention , child abuse , poison control , psychology , demography , clinical psychology , environmental health , political science , computer security , sociology , computer science , law
Empirical findings are reported on an age group of sexually abusive youth (4-12 years) not commonly studied. Findings are from major studies employing the ecologically framed MEGA ♪ risk assessment tool: MEGA ♪ Combined Samples Studies ( N = 3901 [1979-2017] (Miccio-Fonseca Journal of Child Sexual Abuse: Special Issue on Risk Assessment of Sexually Abusive Youth , 2018a, Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma , 2018b) and MEGA ♪ Combined Cross Validation Studies ( N = 2717). Samples consisted of male, female, and transgender-female, ages 4-19 with coarse sexual improprieties and/or sexually abusive youth, including youth with low intellectual functioning. Findings provided normative data, with cut-off scores according to age and gender, establishing four (calibrated) risk levels: Low, Moderate, High, and Very-High . The fourth risk level, Very-High Risk, sets MEGA ♪ apart from other risk assessment tools by the ability to assess those few most seriously concerning and/or dangerous youth, whereas other risk tools (with three risk levels) do not make this differentiation.