Helping a child to understand her own testicular feminisation.

Abstract

Children do not think as adults do. They would therefore be less worried than adults are about a diagnosis with serious or ominous implications, yet they are commonly left uninformed until someone judges that they are old enough to understand. For most, this means delivery of painful information during the very vulnerable teenage years. A better approach is to unfold the truth stage by stage, matching simple statements to the child's conceptual growth until the personal implications are finally realised as part of a maturing process. Use of this approach for a child with testicular feminisation is described.