In a study of young children's knowledge of sexual abuse, it was hypothesized that not all skill components that children needed to enable them to recognize and handle sexual abuse would be learned to the same degree. Participants were 117 children of 3-6 years of age from 4 preschools. The Grossmont College Sexual Abuse Prevention Program intervention that was used taught the "No, Go, Tell" message with interactive lessons and puppets during five 20-minute segments. Pre- and post-tests were administered using the What If Situations Test (WIST). Each child was asked to imagine being in five hypothetical situations, including four sexual abuse situations and one situation in which the child received an appropriate touch from a parent. The four sexual abuse stories measured a child's ability to refuse the perpetrator, leave the situation, and report the sexual advances. Analysis of the results suggested that mastery of certain skills was related to age. Younger preschoolers were unable to recognize an abusive situation even though they demonstrated the ability to reject the perpetrator and leave the situation. One explanation was that young children's responses are less cognitively based and more affectively based. It was concluded that programs must be more finely tailored to the needs and developmental capabilities of younger preschool children and that current methods of teaching the NO, GO, TELL skills may be inadequate. Contains 11 references. (LB)