Letters: Watching Them Grow Up (1 Letter)

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To the Editor:

Re “Now We Are Six” (Basics, Dec. 27): Recent research on middle childhood gives valuable new information and insight, but why does David Lancy think that middle childhood as a research topic has been overlooked?

I am 95, and my memory is much longer. The present researchers had a lot to build on. The 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s were times when basic research was done on children between birth and adulthood. Mental and physical growth were studied through repeated measurements of children of all ages. Results included physical growth charts, norms for skeletal growth and tooth eruption, the Stanford-Binet test of mental development, the California mental and motor development scales.

The grand stage theorists of our time also made essential contributions to understanding childhood. Piaget showed that children develop; they create different modes of thinking. Erickson’s model of personality development made middle childhood distinct. Even earlier, Gesell contributed mental and motor scales, and before that, his principles of growth. Stage theorists actually date back to Greek and Roman times, even Biblical times.

Mollie S. Smart

Ridgefield, Wash.

The writer is emerita professor of child development, University of Rhode Island.

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Letters: Rape and Its Aftermath (2 Letters)

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Re “Supportive Steps After a Sexual Assault” (Personal Health, Dec. 20): Jane E. Brody’s otherwise comprehensive article omits one of the most important things a sexual assault survivor and her advocates can do to reduce the trauma of this horrific violation. Counseling and treatment to prevent an unwanted pregnancy is an essential part of compassionate care.

Unfortunately, many barriers stand in the way of women’s access to emergency contraception, which is safe and effective. As Dr. Judith Linden notes in the article Ms. Brody references, only 17 percent to 43 percent of rape survivors get medical treatment. Having emergency contraception available on drugstore shelves, which will happen only when there are no age restrictions, would allow survivors who do not get medical care the chance to reduce their risk of becoming pregnant.

The recent decision by the Department of Health and Human Services to overrule the Food and Drug Administration’s attempt to make the emergency contraceptive known as Plan B available without age restrictions was focused primarily on concerns about access by teenagers younger than 17. But the benefit of greater access to all women, including sexual assault survivors, has been largely overlooked.

Marcia D. Greenberger

Washington

The writer is co-president for health and reproductive rights, National Women’s Law Center.

To the Editor:

Upon reading this column, I again found myself vexed by the widespread acceptance and use of the term “sexual assault.“ I’m not sure exactly when that euphemism replaced “rape” in common use, but I know it took me some time before I realized fully that it nearly always means rape. Or does it? That’s the problem with using “assault” as a stand-in. It’s sufficiently vague and undefined, even legally, that it could mean anything from unwanted attention to groping to undisputable sexual violence.

I appreciate that it came into use as way to possibly protect victims from stigma or re-abuse, but I feel it instead imposes further injustice on victims by not addressing the horror of the crime head-on. If a person has been raped, we should call the act by its real and awful name and allow victims to demand justice for what has been visited upon them. Susan Scharf

Concord, Calif.

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