Child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome

Child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome, or CSAAS, was introduced by Roland C. Summit in 1983 as a theory about how children he believed were experiencing ongoing sexual abuse adapt to that abuse. Summit argued that such children "learn to accept the situation and to survive," with no escape or place to run, and that a healthy, resilient child would accommodate to the reality of the abuse. He proposed five stages: secrecy, helplessness, entrapment and accommodation, delayed disclosure, and retraction. Summit later acknowledged that many people were misled by the term "syndrome" and that his theory had been misused as a diagnostic tool in behavioral science and criminal trials. Mary de Young noted that CSAAS was frequently cited during the day-care sex-abuse hysteria of the 1980s and 1990s, as it claims to explain both delayed disclosures and withdrawals of false allegations. De Young argued that the theory was used to treat any child statement—immediate disclosure, delayed disclosure, withdrawal, or sustained denial—as evidence that abuse had occurred. Several states have banned testimony about CSAAS, citing a lack of general scientific acceptance except regarding delayed reporting. Neither the American Psychiatric Association nor the American Psychological Association has recognized CSAAS.