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MEGA ♪ Cross-Validation Findings on Sexually Abusive Females: Implications for Risk Assessment and Clinical Practice

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Abstract

Discussed is a variety of gender differences, offering a clearer view as to how female sexually abusive youth differ from males. Reported are descriptive findings on a substantial sample (N = 1056 – males and females, ages 4–19, including youth with low intellectual functioning) participating in the cross-validation of MEGA ♪ , the largest studies to date on risk assessment tools for sexually abusive youth. Sample was stratified according to age and gender, resulting in normative data. Cross-validation findings demonstrated Risk Scale of MEGA ♪ had good predictive validity (i.e., AUC values =.71) [95 % CI = .62 to .80; p < .001] for ages 13 to 19, and .77 [95 % C.I. = .60 to .96; p = 0.016] for ages 4 to 12) (Miccio-Fonseca Journal of Family Violence 28:623–634, 2013). Findings affirmed sexually abusive females can be high risk, are typically less dangerous than males, re-offending less frequently. Female sexually abusive youth are distinctly different from males and therefore need a gender specific risk assessment tool.

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Notes

  1. Coarse sexual improprieties are behaviors that reflect an unsophisticated awareness of psychosexual conditions, environments, or social situations. Youth with coarse sexual improprieties engage in sexual behaviors that are crude, indecent, and outside the societal norms of propriety (e.g., crude sexual gestures, sexually suggestive and/or vulgar sexual comments, mooning, looking up skirts, a young child rubbing his or her genitals in public or trying to grab another’s genitals, a child looking over a stall in a public restroom) (Miccio-Fonseca 2010).

  2. Sexually abusive behaviors and improprieties fall along a continuum of low, moderate, high, or very high (lethal) risk; this applies to sexually abusive youths who are adjudicated or non-adjudicated.

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  1. Clinic for the Sexualities, 591 Camino De La Reina, Suite 705, San Diego, CA, 92108, USA

    L. C. Miccio-Fonseca

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Correspondence to L. C. Miccio-Fonseca.

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Miccio-Fonseca, L.C. MEGA ♪ Cross-Validation Findings on Sexually Abusive Females: Implications for Risk Assessment and Clinical Practice. J Fam Viol 31, 903–911 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-016-9845-8

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