Identifying Sexually Abused Children Through Their Art
Identifying Sexually Abused Children Through Their Art
Identifying Sexually Abused Children Through Their Art
Sexually Abused
Children Through
Their
ART
Child Abuse Education Foundation of WI, Inc.
Scott R. Neubauer, BS MPA • Educational Liaison
[email protected] • Phone (262) 729-0311
1200 West Royal Lee Drive
Palmyra, WI 53156
ABOUT
SCOTT NEUBAUER
Scott Neubauer has been a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-
Whitewater since the fall semester of 2006. He currently teaches Criminal
Investigation and Criminal Investigation of Child Abuse. In addition to
The Child Abuse Education Foundation of WI, Inc. exists to prevent his teaching, Scott works for the Child Abuse Education of Wisconsin
Foundation, giving presentations on child abuse throughout Wisconsin,
Michigan and Illinois. Scott has 35 years experience in Law Enforcement, the
child abuse by educating child care professionals, teachers, social workers
last 22 years serving as Chief of Police in Palmyra, WI. He holds a bachelor’s
of science in Criminal Justice from the University of Wisconsin-Milwau-
and law enforcement about the early identification, reporting and kee and a master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of
Wisconsin-Oshkosh. He is a life member of the Wisconsin Chiefs of Police
investigation of physical and sexual abuse of children. Association and the 2004 Victim’s Advocacy Award winner for his child abuse
investigations and presentations.
For the last ten years Scott has been traveling the state of Wisconsin and
beyond giving talks on identifying child abuse. It is common when giving
talks to elementary and early childhood teachers for them to bring up specific
concerns about past and present students. One of the most frequently asked
questions is: Do we have enough information to report child abuse? Unlike
physical abuse, where the black eyes and bruises are an obvious giveaway, the
signs of sexual abuse are more difficult to identify. Scott has always used
the following list of “red flags,” or indicators, to identify sexually abused
children:
► Frequent masturbation
CONTACT US ► Toilet training regression
► Children touching other children’s private parts
Child Abuse Education Foundation of WI, Inc. ► Non-age appropriate sexual knowledge
Non-Age Appropriate Sexual Knowledge Professionals that work with children are not good at substantiating child abuse
Children under the age of five do not understand that they are being sexually the first time an allegation is made. When there are repeat allegations, we do much
abused. They will, however, report it to someone when it hurts or because better with believing the child or children. In order to avoid repeat allegations
they don’t like something, such as oral sex. Children using slang terms for sex and investigations, parents who abuse their children will often make excuses,
acts is a valid identifier of sexual abuse, since they have no reason for knowing blame someone else, or move. Backgrounds on parents living in Wisconsin
such terms otherwise. can easily be checked using the automated circuit court records system web site:
wcca.wicourts.gov.
Child Abuse & Art Therapy
Research Findings
For the past two years, students at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and Scott have been
studying art therapy as it relates to sexually abused children. From our research we have com-
In 2006 Scott investigated a complaint from a local elementary school about piled and simplified a list of sexual abuse indicators found in art and compared that list to our
a third grade girl who repeatedly exposed her genitalia to fellow classmates collection of drawings done by the 3rd and 4th graders in our control group (minus drawings
during class and at recess. During the investigation, a counselor at the school done by known victims of sexual abuse).
suggested Scott look at a drawing done by the girl’s five-year-old brother.
When Scott saw the drawing (below), he knew the child was being sexually Houses Control %
Smoke from chimneys 31%
abused. His abuser turned out to be his older sister, who was in turn abused No doors 2%
by her father. With the cooperation of the school district Scott had the 3rd Rain 1%
and 4th grade children, including the little girl, complete drawings of houses Dark clouds 0%
and persons. Scott’s objective was to see if the abused girl’s drawings would
be revealing of her abuse, as her brother’s drawing was. He wanted to know, People
given a set of known indicators, if we can differentiate a sexually abused child’s Inclusion of genitalia (sexualized) 0%
Lack of hands 5%
drawings from her classmates’. And can we use these drawings to supplement
Excessive use of hearts 5% (1 EACH)
the other red flag indicators of abuse discussed earlier, since many of those Excessive use of wedges 0%
indicators are difficult to easily identify? Aggressive face (growling) 1%
Sad and crying face 0%
Self loathing 0%
Judging from the percentages above, we can see that not all indicators of sexual abuse found in
children’s art should be given equal weight. As such, the indicators were broken down into two
This drawing includes genitalia, categories:
use of hearts and wedges, all red
Red flags or stand alone indicators - observed in 2% or less of the control group
►
flag indicators of child abuse.
drawings
Yellow flags or indicators that require more than one observed element - observed in 5% or
►
more of the control drawings
For example, we found that some 3rd and 4th grade children simply cannot draw hands so
they don’t include them in their drawings. This makes “lack of hands” a yellow flag indicator,
requiring some other indicator to be present for it to be significant. None of our control group
children, however, drew sad or crying faces, making these red flag indicators.
When the indicators above are compared to drawings done by sexually abused children, one
frequently finds more than one indicator in the drawings.
No Doors Rain
The lack of doors on this house is a red flag. This Draw by a 4th grade girl who was sexually abused by her
drawing also has smoke coming from the chimney, a father. It contains rain, an element that children in this
yellow flag. Drawn by a 3rd grade sexual abuse victim. age bracket do not typically draw. It also has wedges – the
borders on each side of the house. Wedges are triangular
objects that can take the form of arrows, weapons, or
unwelcoming borders, as is the case here..
Sad or Crying Faces Excessive Use of Hearts
Drawn by a 3rd grade girl who was a victim of sexual *Malchiodi (1997), p. 154
abuse. This drawing has not only a crying face but also Hearts can be in the form of traditional Valentine’s Day
depicts genitalia, both red flag indicators.. hearts (above), or the shape of an actual heart as depicted
in the first drawing by the five-year-old brother. A single
heart is a yellow flag; more than one heart, as depicted in
this drawing, is a red flag.
Self-Loathing Sexualized Drawings
Drawn by a 3rd grade girl sexually abused by her father. *Malchiodi (1997), p. 156
In addition to the target over her that depicts the self- In addition to the sexualized female, this drawing also has
loathing, this drawing also includes the use of wedges the excessive use of hearts. Drawn by female victim of
(the arrow) and genitalia (directly above the shaft of the sexual abuse.
arrow).
Aggressive or
Growling Faces
Recognition of Abuse
We compiled a total of 40 drawings in four categories: 3rd grade houses, 4th grade houses,
3rd grade persons, and 4th grade persons. Of those 40 drawings, nine were done by sexually
abused children.
An independent –samples t test comparing the mean scores of the trained and control groups
found a significant difference between the mean number of pictures correctly identified
between the two groups ( t(410) = -12.755, p<.01). The mean of the trained group was sig-
nificantly higher (m = 84.28, sd = 9.66) than the mean of the control group (m = 71.28, sd =
10.37). This means the trained group (correct 84.28% of the time) was significantly better at
identifying whether or not a child was abused through his/her artwork than the control group
(correct 71.28% of the time).
We decided to further break down the research into four specific categories to determine the
training’s effectiveness. In the category of third grade houses the control group correctly
identified the pictures 72.70% of the time (on average) while the trained group averaged
While the training significantly improved a person’s ability to correctly identify whether or not
Drawn by a sexually abused 4th grade girl. It depicts the a picture was drawn by an abused child, it was more successful when the artwork demon-
aggressive or growling face on both figures, and is also an strating abuse was drawn by a third grade student. We believe this result may have occurred
because our main test subject (the girl who was sexually abused by her father) began receiving
example of storm clouds, a second red flag indicator. counseling at the end of her third grade year. The counseling she received may be why the
indicators present in her drawings became more discrete, and thus more difficult to identify.
We also gave our test to 49 daycare workers. The day care workers were able to correctly
identify whether or not the artist of a given picture was abused 86.17% of the time. We
believe their scores may be higher than those of the tested college students because they have
a more vested professional interest in children.
Statistics for
Recognition of Abuse
During our testing we found that there is a wide range of artistic talent displayed in the drawings In some of these more unusual drawings, where there were no indicators, knowledge of the
of 3rd and 4th graders. Some of the more unusual drawings were consistently misidentified as children and their home environment can provide explanations. In the first drawing immediately
being drawn by abused children, even if they had none of the indicators for sexual abuse above, the child wrote, “Stay out please!” This is not one of the discussed indicators, and can be
discussed above. Those false positives were consistently less in our trained group. explained by the fact that the child’s family just had a baby who was sleeping in the bedroom. In
the second drawing above, the child is attempting to represent himself as a cowboy - he lives in a
rural area where people commonly ride horses.
Since there was a substantial range of artistic talent among our 3rd and 4the grade control group
in both the person and house drawings, we asked a graduate of the Milwaukee Institute of Art
and Design to review our 261 drawings. She is an experienced judge of elementary art contests,
and chose the following as a representation of the range in artistic talent at these ages.
2
Children’s art should References
Cohen-Liebman, M.S., (1995). Drawings as judiciary aids in child sexual abuse litigation: a
not be used as a composite list of indicators. The Arts in Psychotherapy 22(5), 475-483.
stand-alone method
Kenny, M. (2004). Teachers’ attitudes toward and knowledge of child maltreatment. Child
Abuse & Neglect, 28, 1311-1319.
Malchiodi, C.A. (1997). Breaking the Silence: Art Therapy with Children from Violent Homes.
abused children. 2nd ed. New York: Brunner-Routledge.
Malchiodi, C.A. (1998). Understanding Children’s Drawings. New York: Guilford Publications.
Neubauer, S. (1999). The relationship between sexual abuse and criminal activity (Master’s
It is designed as a tool to be used when other previously listed indicators exist and confirmation thesis, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, 1999).
of abuse is being sought:
Peterson, L.W. & Zamboni, S. (1998). Quantitative art techniques to evaluate child trauma: A
► Frequent masturbation case review. Clinical Pediatrics, 45-51.
► Toilet training regression
► Children touching other children’s private parts
► Non-age appropriate sexual knowledge
► Dramatic mood changes
► Uncharacteristic rage
Contributors
►Self-mutilation Rebecca Mahan-Strupp Co-Investigator B.A. Psychology
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
According to the book “Recognition of Child Abuse for the Mandated Reporter” (Giardino, A. &
Isabel Davis Statistics B.S. Psychology
Giardino, E.; 2002) children under the age of five who are sexually abused have substantially more University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
difficulty dealing with their victimization than older children. They initially don’t understand that
they have been abused. My experience has been that over 50% of these sexual abuse victims - Erica Neubauer Editor B.A. English
unlike teen victims - go on to become abusers themselves. We need to get these children help. My University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
research in “The Relationship Between Child Sexual Abuse and Criminal Activity” demonstrates
that when children who are sexually abused do not get the help they need, there are devastating Rachel Neubauer Art B.A. Fine Arts
effects that last a lifetime. The good news is that we can turn abused children around by getting Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design
them help. The first step is identifying the abuse. Please take advantage of our research. Look
Special Thanks
at the art of a child whom you suspect might have been abused. If you see the signs of abuse,
immediately start the healing process for that child and report it to the police and social services.
Dr. Ruth Hammiller and Principal Steve Grenquest of Palmyra-Eagle School District for their
help and support.
Kyle Anderson
Kayla Dunning
Sarah Felter
Samantha Hanson
Amanda Lindner
Kate Norman
Dan Smith