Luckily, as it turned out, my son was not molested at school or anywhere else, he just had GI problems.  Nonetheless, I was glad to be alerted to this issue and I hope these books also help other parents.

A subject many do not seem to want to talk about, but apart from the abuse in instutions, homes etc.. as parent we need to remember aspergers teenagers often are a lot more native and as I know only to well myself, the situations I got myself into because I simply did not know how to form relationships like others!

Recent news stories about the case of Marine Pvt. Joshua Fry have had a tendency to place the word "autistic" and the phrase "child pornography" prominently in the first paragraph or two.

But if you read down toward the bottom, you may see something like "Fry had a downtrodden childhood... that included physical and possibly sexual abuse." Nowhere is it ever conjectured that the abuse, rather than the autism, might explain his desire for child porn.

Similarly, in the case of Virginia Tech shooter Seung Cho, hyperventilating "reporters" latched on to the word "autism" without taking time to reveal that he had been evaluated for it, and found NOT to have it, at age 8.

A couple points:

1) The overwhelming majority of child sexual abuse is, and always has been, committed by authority figures in the child's life; the second biggest category is trusted non-authority adults like relatives or family friends. Despite the fact that almost everybody who hasn't studied the subject thinks of sexual abuse in terms of "stranger danger", strangers account for (and have always accounted for) less than 7% of CSA.

2) The overwhelming majority of offenders had no prior convictions at the time of the offense. Thus, screening is of very limited value and can lead to a false sense of security if overemphasized (it has to be done, but it shouldn't be seen as the primary method of defense). The solutions are structural: avoid creating situations where abuse is possible (remember, for example, the CSA is always extremely secretive; while there were high-profile convictions of mass sexual abuse in broad daylight in daycare centers in the 1980s, most of them involved less real evidence than the Salem witch trials).

3) Addressing Erin's point, the belief that those who are sexually abused will almost inevitably go on to sexually abuse others unless they get therapy (which mainly consists of repeatedly re-experiencing the event) is one of the most common myths of pop psychology. All studies done have shown that it isn't true (and it shouldn't be surprising; if it were true, how would you account for the fact that the overwhelming majority of victims are female whereas the overwhelming majority of perpetrators are male?).

It is true that physical abusers are more likely than the general population to have been physically abused themselves, but it is not true that people who have been physically abused are especially likely to become physical abusers (the logic error here is really an arithmetic one, confusing two fractions with the same numerator but different denominators).

4) Institutional settings are always going to pose a higher risk for undiscovered abuse than non-institutional settings (note, though, that the majority of abuse is always going to take place in the home simply because that's where most kids spend most of their time).

5) Addressing Cheryl, another myth is that there are definitive behavioral signs that a child has been sexually abused. In fact, there's no definable psychological syndrome associated with having been abused. Therapists who are sure there is are generally comitting a logic error called affirming the consequent; in order to state that a particular symptom is a sign of sexual abuse, it's not enough to demonstrate that it's common in abused kids; you also have to show that it's rare in non-abused kids (think of those "are your teenagers on drugs" PSAs; most of those "signs" are ordinary adolescent behaviors).

I agree with your points.  One of the biggest obstacles we face with developmentally and intellectually disabled individuals is the ability to communicate.  With a typical child we can encourage parents and other involved adults to create open lines of communication, provide sound sex education (proper labeling of body parts, appropriate vs inappropriate touching, etc), and just encourage general attentive and involved parenting.  These tools, when used appropriately and rationally, can hopefully help facilitate a victim or potential victim to report inappropriate or abusive behavior early on. 

With people (both adults and children) who have a limited or atypical ability to communicate it becomes much more difficult.  You may notice a change in behavior with a sexually abused child, but that change is likely so vague that it can be attributed to any number of things- which is why "check lists" that are suppose to show signs of sexual abuse have been largely abandoned.  Ontop of that, physical signs of abuse are often nonexistant.  So we really have to look at creating structures that minimize the opportunities a potential abuser would have to victimise someone.  Unfortunately, as with typical individuals, it is virtually impossible to protect a person (child or adult) 100% while still allowing that person to live a full and whole life.

At the time, my kiddo was language-delayed, and I'm glad his doctor noted the communications my son was giving us even if they were mis-interpreted at that time.  I don't think the doctor used a checklist or something.  He just noted my son's aversion to the school (which we later figured out was because the school's demands of him were not developmentally appropriate -he had very little core strength and it wasn't developmentally appropriate to expect him to sit at a desk and write for extended periods) as well as behaviors my son exhibited in relation to his solid waste elimination (which were related to his GI distress, etc.)

The good thing about the books I noted were they are primarily about ABUSERS.  Abusers DO have definitive behavioral signs and a parent who learns them is better suited to identify potential abusers, thus circumventing the abuse in the first place.  The books describe how molesters groom children and their parents.  It's helpful to know how the twisted minds of molesters work.

My younger brother who is deaf, autistic, severely mentally challenged was physically and sexually brutalized as an adult in his group home by a male staff, despite my parents' vigilance and close scrunity of the staff.  I believe their desire for extensive one-on-one staffing and their hiring preferences (no gay males, no "hippie" types - they wanted people who fit their "conservative" profile) actually created the very situation they were trying to prevent.  The police declined to prosecute.   My brother has never been the same, he has lost most of his language and developed a number of phobias.

Many sexual predators have no criminal history.  I think the place to start to protect those who are most vulnerable is to not give would-be predators opportunties to act.  I think there needs to be a better way for these predators to be prosecuted - right now, they rarely get caught, and if they do, they don't get prosecuted, they are fired, and they simply go to another county, another state and do it all over again.

Second, there needs to be openness, honesty and education for disabled people about sexuality across the board.  This squeamishness/stigma that the public has about disability and sexuality needs to end.  I think that everyone, regardless of where they are mentally, has the right to learn about their bodies and more.