They are often isolated from friends and family and may have no one to give them emotional support. While these effects are not always obvious, they are important. Long-term studies of low achievers, runaways, drug abusers, prostitutes and incarcerated individuals paint a disturbing picture.
Abuse is a consistent and pervasive element in their backgrounds.
Knowing this, there can be little doubt that children who are abused, as well as adults who were abused as children, need assistance to resolve the questions that the abuse experience has raised, even if that assistance does not come until years after the abuse.