304 Book Reviews

Confronting Child Abuse: Research for Effective Program Design. Deborah Daro. The Free Press, New York, NY, 356 pp. 1988. $25.00.

THIS UP-TO-DATE ANALYSIS of contemporary research provides a unique framework for under- standing the many aspects of child abuse and neglect. Organized into three parts, the first section offers a comprehensive and well-researched overview of the problems of child abuse, its scope, and causes. The fundamental consensus of child maltreatment and related theories of causation are supported by charts and tables which display useful information drawn from research. Highlights and footnotes from major writers and researchers in the field are presented to augment the author’s own substantial research and understanding of the problem of child abuse in America.

Section two addresses current best practice and policy. Research, upon which new and informed approaches to treatment and prevention have been based, is described. Models of intervention have emerged based upon the increasing knowledge gained from both research and experience.

The author presents an overview of investigative and service-planning strategies which form the basis for modem child protective services. A national clinic evaluation study of 19 demonstration projects is interpreted in terms of its implications for practice with a variety of client populations and theoretical models. Services’ effectiveness for both adults and children are examined followed by a summary of prevention strategies.

One of the unique features of this book is the treatment of future strategies for successful intervention and prevention in Section III. While recognizing the difficulty of cost-benefit analysis, Daro presents a rare digest of cost effectiveness research and applies the concept to child protective services.

A most valuable contribution to the field, this book refers to over 300 publications and research reports. An extensive bibliography is included along with appendices which provide data characteristics and methodology of the national clinical evaluation study of 19 U.S.A. child maltreatment projects and their results, and a complete legislative and service resources directory.

This book connects theory, research, and practice in a very logical manner. The balance between intervention and prevention is seldom drawn so convincingly and clearly.

Larry Brown, A.C.S.W.

American Humane Association Denver, CO

Spiders and Flies: Help for Parents and Teachers of Sexually Abused Children. Donald Hillman and Janice Solek-Tefft. D. C. Heath, Lexington, MA, 198 pp. 1988. $24.95.

THE BOOK IS A DISAPPOINTMENT. It promises to “provide parents and teachers of sexually abused children with specific strategies they can use to help alleviate stress and improve coping skills both for themselves and the child.” Yet only two of the book’s 15 chapters offer specific, although limited, strate- gies. And six other chapters, which attempt to provide understanding of abusive encounters, the short- and long-term effects of abuse, child credibility issues, and dysfunctional family interaction, the perpe- trator, and the dynamics of sexual abuse, are overgeneralized, unsubstantiated by research, and poorly written. The authors acknowledge that we have just begun to study the effects of abuse in a systematic way, and then proceed to make assumptions about the intensity and length of abuse and the impact of the child’s age at the onset of abuse. For instance, such statements as “in general, the therapeutic resolu- tion of sexual abuse at a young age appears to be healthy, as fewer long-term effects are observed in adults who were treated while children or adolescents” are commonplace and unproved. The authors also express little empathy for adolescent victims, suggesting that “some degree of guilt might not be harmful or misplaced, particularly in relation to adolescents who might have engaged in seductive activ- ities for reasons of manipulation, power, and control. In such cases, the adolescent must review his or her role in the situation and confess his or her part in the activities.” Such advice is inappropriate and