ABEL Screening for Sexual Interest Testing
The Abel Assessment for Sexual Interest / AASI (also Abel Assessment for Interest in Paraphilias/ Sexual disorders) is a computer-based test used to measure a person’s sexual interests, especially towards children, it was developed by Dr. Gene Abel in 1995, over the last two decades, it is regularly used to help decide the fates of people accused of sex crimes in probate and parole decisions, custody battles, and criminal trials. It is used as evidence in the prosecution of sex offenders in the United States. Over the last 20 years, Abel estimates his assessment has been administered more than 170,000 times.
The subject has presented a sequence of slides in two independent stages during the Abel Assessment. The first process determines the subject’s reaction in relation to the mean reaction by measuring the viewing time of each slide. If the subject’s viewing time exceeds the mean, it is assumed that he has a sexual interest in the image displayed. For example, if the individual stares at children in bathing suits for a longer period of time than is typical, the Abel Assessment identifies him as having an interest in children. The user must rate the visuals on a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 being repulsive and 7 being sexually arousing, during the second procedure. At First Light Psychological Services, in Kew Gardens, NY & Farmingdale, NY our staff of dedicated professionals is providing wide-ranging psychosexual evaluations involving all the steps of ABEL screening for sexual interest testing to determine the symptoms and for the diagnosis of psychosexual disorders, which helps as evidence while indicting sex offenders.
Mental-health experts frequently interview convicted and alleged child molesters and other sex offenders for hours, but they also use measuring techniques to acquire psychological information that a patient may not wish to share: Does he have an intrinsic fondness for children? Is it a one-sided attraction, or does he also like adults? Is it possible that he has additional problematic sexual desires that need to be addressed in therapy?
To answer these questions, clinicians use a variety of tools, including the polygraph, as well as the penile plethysmograph, a device that is directly attached to the penis that measures arousal. Both of those tests are invasive and hard to administer; At First Light Psychological Services, in Kew Gardens, NY & Farmingdale, NY our clinicians are taking the Abel Assessment, which simply involves answering a questionnaire and viewing a series of pictures on a computer screen. With the information it provides in the form of percentages and graphs, clinicians can make more informed decisions about the indication of sexual interest and sexual molesters.