Search

The article presents an overview of the Frank D. Fincham, Thom Moore, Steven R.H. Beach and Carol Diener paper on professional response to child sexual abuse. Fincham, Moore, Beach and Diener contend that an area in which researchers could make a difference in child sexual abuse would be to compare "abused children to children reported to Child Protective Services (CPS) but whose cases tuned out to be unfounded." They stress the need for differentiating between the impact of abuse on the child and the impact of the professionals' response on the child. The author agree that it is important to examine the problematic outcomes of CPS workers' responses in cases where abuse does not exist, but the author see that concern as being separate from the concern for abused children. The issue of nonabused children who undergo a CPS investigation and the issue of abused children need to be examined separately. Feminist researchers argue that comparisons between groups can be detrimental in terms of understanding the dynamics within each group. Comparing one group to another inadvertently places one as the standard and the other as the comparison.