Children's narratives of sexual abuse: What characterizes them and how do they contribute to meaning-making?

Personal narratives from ten children who all claimed to have been sexually abused were analyzed and compared to narratives of stressful events the children produced in therapy sessions. The narratives were compared to each other along the following dimensions: level of elaboration, narrative structure, contextual embeddedness, and causal coherence. Each child's attempt to find purpose and resolution was also analyzed. The stressful event narratives were generally more elaborate, more structured, and more contextually embedded and coherent than the sexual abuse narratives. Very few of the sexual abuse narratives contained resolutions or causal connections that are considered important for contributing to meaning- making. It is suggested that in order to understand the difficulties children face, a narrative perspective needs to include the emotional significance of the events to be narrated, and a trauma perspective must include the cultural impact of the event. A theory that intends to understand children's narration difficulties should encompass both these perspectives. (Narratives, Child sexual abuse, Traumas)