Journal of Childhood & Developmental Disorders

Understanding Sexual Behaviour in a Sample of 2 to 12 Years Old Egyptian Children

Objectives: To investigate types and frequencies of sexual behaviours among a sample of 2-12 years old Egyptian children and to explore out the possible factors that may be related to their occurrence.

Design: Mothers of 515 physically and mentally healthy children were approached to answer a questionnaire about child’s behaviour. It included 3 sections; a demographic section, the Arabic version of Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) used to identify positive and negative aspects in the child and a modified battery of Childhood Sex Behaviour questionnaire to assess a broad range of sexual behaviours.

Results: 64.5% of the whole sample gave positive responses for sexual behaviours with mean total score on Childhood Sex Behaviour questionnaire 2.79 ±3.38. The most frequent behaviours among the whole sample were touching genitals at home (25.2%), asking about sexual acts (18.9%), using sexual words (18.3%) and touching child’s genitals in public (14.2%). While the least frequent reported behaviours were touching animal genitals and trying to have sex with other children (0.6%). Some items of sexual behaviours were significantly correlated with different age groups and with gender difference. A number of demographic and home environment factors attributed to the occurrence of these behaviours were discussed.

Conclusion: Egyptian children exhibit a variety of sexual behaviours, many of which can be interpreted as developmentally related. Parental demographics and family adversity certainly influence the frequencies and types of observed sexual behaviours with regard to age group and gender differences.

Author(s):

Kholoud Ahmed Ali Ibrahem, Marwa Esameldin Ahmed El-Refaie Khamis, Zeinab Mohamed Ahmed Ali, Ghada Refaat Amin Taha* and Ghada Ibrahem Gad

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