The Impact Of Abstinence Programs On Adolescent Sexual Behavior

Sexual education is the process of obtaining information and forming attitudes and beliefs about sex, and intimacy. Sex education is also about developing skills for young people so that they make informed choices about their behavior. It is important for sex education to begin at a young age. Giving young people basic information from an early age provides the foundation on which more complex knowledge is built up over the years as they go in to their adolescent years. The education they receive plays a major role in the way they make decisions. Based on the way it is taught, the child makes decisions that may forever change his/her life. The two most essential ways children learn about sex is at through their peers and at school. There are …show more content…
In the article it describes abstinence programs as risk-avoidance and abstinence-plus as curricula that emphasizes abstinence as the safest behavior but also promote the use of condoms or other forms of contraception for those who do have sex. Within the last fifteen years researchers have done studies of the impact of risk avoidance programs on the youths’ knowledge on sex. In years past the evaluation of abstinence programs has made fair comparison between the two programs impossible due to lack of scientific relativity. Both groups are diverse abstinence emphasizes on waiting until marriage while some other risk avoidance do not as for comprehensive programs some go after younger high school students and strongly emphasize abstinence while also discussing condoms and contraceptive use. Rigorous evaluations using large experimental designs have tested many risk avoidance programs have found no over-all impact on youths delay initiation of sex, numbers of partners. Some others abstinence programs have been less rigorously with quasi-experimental design. From that study the results suggested three of the programs may have some positive effects on adolescent’s behavior. Finally, the results of several replication studies are quite encouraging, providing greater evidence that curricula can be effective when they are implemented with fidelity by others in different