Tag: Sexuality

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Teaching Abuse Prevention

While there is debate about the actual prevalence, people with disabilities are more likely to be abused than their nondisabled peers. There are a few reasons why and this is by no means an exhaustive list:

  • They may exhibit behaviors that people assume require them to be restrained.
  • They are “nonverbal” and unable to report the abuse
  • The abuse is coming from a caregiver and if the victim reports the abuse, they may lose access to care
  • When they do report abuse, they are not believed because they have a disability
  • They have not learned the vocabulary to report abuse
  • Words that will help them report abuse are not programmed into their communication devices
  • They are unaware that what happened was abuse, so they do not report it as such.
  • They are more likely to require assistance with self-care tasks (which can make it easier for those assisting them to abuse them)
  • They are isolated and do not have a strong support system to help advocate for them
  • There is over-focus on teaching “compliance”

In the minor reading I have done, I have found abuse prevention programs that focus on using behavioral skills training where individuals with disabilities are taught how to respond in a potentially abusive situation (this is modeled and then they do a role play practice). Some other curriculum teaches individuals how to make decisions that could decrease the likelihood that abuse would occur. In this curriculum, they look at scenarios and review what decisions should be made in order to stay safe. (“On a side note, while I agree that there need to be specific curricula and teaching practices to help individuals with disabilities, I don’t think that we should be putting all the responsibility on them to keep themselves safe.) However, the majority of curriculum that I have seen are not conducive to individuals with moderate/severe/profound disabilities; especially those that have communication deficits. Many of the programs I have seen use a lot of language and verbally mediated instruction.

The majority of my work is with adults who have disabilities; many of whom require help with basic self-care tasks. Unfortunately, this increases the likelihood that they will be abused. It can be difficult to teach the concepts of “private places” and “private parts” to people with disabilities who require extensive support. This is because, staff and caregivers often violate the privacy rules that we teach when we help with self-care tasks. When I teach the concept of private places, I teach that a private place may be “Private +1”. A “Private+1” place is a private location (i.e your bathroom) with an additional person that you choose who is helping you with very specific tasks. Then  I go over what specific tasks my client will need help with and what that help will look like. For instance, if a client needs “help in the bathroom” we specifically talk about what that means; does it mean you need help wiping your bottom after a bowel movement or you just need help sitting on the toilet? If my client is able to wipe themselves independently, but a staff member/caregiver is coming in and saying they will help and starts touching my clients bottom, this should be a red flag.

We also talk about the people that will be coming in to help them. Unfortunately, due to the nature of living in a group home, my clients may receive help with self-care tasks from people they are not familiar with. There are specific strategies staff can use to help teach new staff members how to safely do this, but that is beyond the scope of this post. For now, we talk about how a variety of people will be helping and we describe what that “helping” should look like.

Lastly, we make a plan that includes trusted and safe people. We review that your “Safe” person does not have to be your family. If my client was abused/neglected by family members, I do not want to teach that their family is who they can go to for help. I avoid using phrases like “If someone hurts you, tell someone in your family”. We talk about their “chosen family”. We list the people in their life who they trust and are close with. It is vital to have your client list more than one safe person.

Some questions to consider:

  • Am I specifically teaching vocabulary related to abuse prevention?
  • What words/phrases should be included when teaching abuse prevention?
  • Do I feel comfortable teaching this vocabulary (i.e. am I comfortable using the word rape, vulva or penis?)

Abuse prevention is a big topic, and one blog post isn’t going to do it justice. But I wanted to make sure that people have access to visuals or at least a jumping off point. If you are interested in visual/social stories to help you teach some of these concepts, check it out here:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Private-Plus-One-Teaching-Privacy-to-Individuals-with-High-Support-Needs-12700079

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Are their Pros to Sexting and What Teens Say They Want to Learn About Social Media Safety

I’ve been doing a lot of reading about teaching social media safety skills. I have some online groups coming up and I want to make sure I am addressing the real issue. I hate to say this cause I think it speaks to my age, but I need to educate myself in the CURRENT research and CURRENT views around sexting. The way that adults/parents view sexting is different from the way teens view it.

A study in 2016, “Sexting: Adolescent’s perceptions of the application used for, motives for, and consequences of sexting” (J. Ouytsel, E. Gool, et al.) in the Journal of Youth Studies found that sexting is actually a quite normal behavior for teens and should be seen as an activity that aids in their development. Sexting was used in romantic relationships to increase connection, to flirt or to experience sexual activity without actually engaging in physical sex.

According to “What Do We Know About Sexting, and When Did We Know it?” by Elizabeth Englander in the Journal of Adolescent Health, “sexting is not [always] strongly correlated with high-risk sexual behavior or poor self-image”. Now it can be, but often times these negative results comes when someone was coerced into sexting or harassed into sexting. Additionally, negative outcomes were more likely to be reported by pre-teens instead of older teens. Oftentimes, the stories we hear are the negative ones and so those are the ones that we pass along and use to scare teens. However, a study in 2018 interviewed teens and found that teens claimed that sexting also led to “enhanced self-confidence, positive self-image, and the strengthening of a romantic relationship”.

I am not saying that sexting is good or bad. But I think when teaching about how to be safe online, using shame and victim blaming (e.g. telling a victim of sexual harassment that it was their fault for sending the nude in the first place) isn’t going to work. Instead of using fear-based teaching we need to use a more normalizing approach. This type of approach would focus on:

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Why Should Neurodivergent Folx get Sex Ed?

Sexual Ableism- have you heard this term before? It was a new one for me. I know what “ableism” is. FYI- ableism is “discrimination and prejudice against disabled people based on the belief that typical abilities are superior”.

I think that when we aren’t directly impacted by things, it is easy to dismiss them and not see them as a concern. For neurotypical people (of which I am one), it is easy to live in a world of privilege and not think about those who are impacted by ableism. Jo Moss, the author of a blog about disability and ableism, further says, “I don’t know about you, but I’ve had enough of living in a society that devalues my worth and sees me as an inconvenience and a burden – subhuman even”. Take a moment to think about how it would be to live in a world where you are seen as a “burden” or an “inconvenience”.

Now, sexual ableism is “a system of beliefs that discriminate against people with disabilities in dating, intimacy, and relationships, suggesting the very presence of a disability implies inferiority.” We demonstrate sexual ableism when we:

  1. Assume that people with disabilities are “asexual” or don’t have sexual desires.
  2. Insist that people with disabilities need to supervised and monitored in their relationships
  3. Seeing people with disabilities as perpetual victims or perpetually vulnerable.

Here is where things can get a little complicated. There is evidence that people with disabilities are more likely to be assaulted and experience sexual abuse than those without disabilities. (It can be hard to get an accurate count, because there are instances of sexual abuse that go unreported, especially if the person who was assaulted has language deficits. However, Disability Justice says that 83% of women with disabilities will be assaulted; 3% of abuse involving people with disabilities is even reported.) So, perhaps it makes sense that we feel the need to constantly monitor and supervise them in relationships. Is constant monitoring and supervision our way of protecting people we care about? I would argue that keeping people with disabilities sheltered and not actively teaching them skills that will keep them safe is keeping them in a life of victimhood. When we do not teach comprehensive sex education to people with disabilities, we are keeping them in a state of victimhood.

David Hingsberger, a renowned disability activist and author, said, “Typical children [who receive sex education] have a number of concepts that will keep them safer. They understand modesty and privacy. They understand relationships and appropriate touch within those relationships. But they have something more, they have language. Protection from sex education leave a person effectively mute when it comes to speaking about their body” (p. 19 Just Say Know: Understanding and Reducing the Risk of Sexual Victimization of People with Developmental Disabilities). At the very least, sex education teaches neurotypical and neurodivergent alike how to report unsafe situations, confusion about what is happening, pain or abuse.

Read the next blog post to see how sex education does more than simply prevent abuse for people with disabilities.

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Consent isn’t just saying “no”

During the last training I gave on “Sex Ed: More Than Just Body Parts” we talked about teaching consent. Katherine McLaughlin (owner of Elevatus Training-an organization that teaches individuals with disabilities to become sexual self-advocates) said, ““The bottom line is, in order to consent, you have to know and believe that you are in charge of your life, and know what you want and what you don’t want. If you don’t believe that, you really aren’t able to consent. Just knowing what consent means really isn’t enough. You have to KNOW you are in charge and take control of your life. ” Thus, a big part of teaching consent is knowing that you are in control and being able to advocate for that.

            When I think about consent, I have a tendency to think that consent is just saying “no” to things that you don’t want. But, it is also being able to say “yes” to what you do want. Here are some things that go into that:

  • Does the individual know what they like and don’t like? (Have they been given enough choices and experiences to have an opinion)
  • Does the individual have the vocabulary needed to state what they like/don’t like or want/don’t want?
  • Does the individual know how to be persistent in their communication efforts? If someone continues to do something they don’t want, will they persist in saying “no” or “stop”?
  • Does the individual know about consequences for behaviors? If they aren’t able to attach a consequence to an action, giving or not giving consent will be hard. For instance, if I ask you “Do you want some sushi?”, do you know what potential consequences are for eating that sushi (tasting raw fish, tasting seaweed, chewing certain textures).
  • Is the individual able to remember past experiences and use this to make an informed choice? For instance, maybe the last time you ate sushi you threw up. If I offer you sushi again, are you able to remember that experience and take that into consideration?
  • Is the individual able to identify both short term and long term consequences for engaging in certain behaviors? For instance, I may love sushi and so I know that the short term consequence is me enjoying a food. However, sushi may make me sick. So, despite the fact that I enjoy it, I will feel ill later on.
  • Does the individual know what their personal values are?
  • Are they able to use their personal values to make choices that align with those values?

References:

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