Breaking Boundaries: Use of Drama Techniques for Child Sexual Abuse Prevention in Children with Down Syndrome

When compared to typically developing children, children with Down Syndrome (DS) are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse (SA) due to a number of factors including DS children experiencing a lag in the development in social maturity, their limited verbal communication and vocabulary, lack of body awareness and boundaries, increased exposure to multiple adults and caregivers, and their vulnerability to manipulation. Sexual education has been shown to be effective in the prevention of SA, pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases among risk populations. However, a high percentage of children with developmental disabilities do not receive any formal sex education. As DS children are typically visual learners, drama related activities have proven to be more effective in sex and relationship education for them. Thus, the present study aimed to examine the effectiveness of drama techniques in increasing the awareness of how to protect oneself from child sexual abuse. A sample of 30 children with Down syndrome (11 male and 19 female) with mild to moderate levels of severity were selected from two special education institutes in Kandy, Sri Lanka. The study used a within group pre-test post- test design with the “Be Safe” Tool designed and adapted to Sri Lanka. The tool consisted of items on the awareness of good touch – bad touch, secrets, and primary prevention strategies of sexual abuse. After the pre-test, five intervention programs using drama techniques including puppets, role play and story-telling were conducted during a three-week period preceding the post-test. The results from the pre-test and post-test indicate that that drama techniques-based intervention has significantly contributed in increasing the awareness of child sexual abuse prevention in DS children including the awareness of how to protect oneself from child SA, to differentiate between good touch and bad touch, and to identify good secrets from bad secrets. Drama based interventions can be used effectively to increase awareness of SA prevention among Down syndrome children.