Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome

Child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome is a clinical model, proposed by the American psychiatrist Roland Summit in 1983, describing a pattern of behavior often seen in children who have been sexually abused by someone they know. The model describes five stages, secrecy, helplessness, entrapment and accommodation, delayed and unconvincing disclosure, and retraction, intended to explain why abused children often do not disclose abuse promptly, may seem to cooperate with an abuser, and sometimes retract an accusation after making it. Summit developed the model to help courts, clinicians and investigators understand behavior that might otherwise be mistaken for evidence that a child's account was false. The syndrome is a descriptive framework rather than a diagnosis and has been the subject of ongoing debate among researchers over how it should be used in legal and clinical settings.