Abstract

This study interviewed sexually abused children with a structured sand-tray assessment developed from empirical pre-studies, and then reviewed its efficacy and applicability as an interview/assessment method for actual cases. Study sample was a group of sexually abused, school-aged 39 children with average intelligence whereas the comparison group was composed of school-aged 34 children who have experienced no sexual abuses. Interviews were conducted one-to-one, during 11 months. Initial interviews with each group were verified first by the inter-rater reliability test, and then statistically analyzed with t-test, one-way ANOVA and Scheffe post-hoc test. The consequences are follows; First, the instrumental charateristics of the interview/assessment method with structured sandtray technique for sexually abused children was meaningful according to the formal analysis of figures, spatial arrangement, overall composition and attitudes of the decoration. Second, the analysis of spontaneous statements of the sexually abused children confirmed the method's applicability to actual cases. Therefore, this study has a significance as a preliminary research to develop an improved assessment method which solves some problems in existing statement/assessment methods for sexually abused children and facilatates more effective statements from them.