Irit Hershkowitz

Effects of Introductory Style on Children's Abilities To Describe Experiences of Sexual Abuse.

OBJECTIVE The goal of this study was to evaluate the relative effectiveness of two rapport-building techniques for eliciting information from children who made allegations of sexual abuse. METHOD Fourteen interviewers conducted 51 investigations of child sexual abuse with children ranging from 4.5 to 12.9 years of age. In 25 of the investigations, interviewers used a script including many open-ended utterances to establish rapport, whereas in 26 of the investigations the same interviewers used a rapport-building script involving many direct questions. Both rapport-building scripts took about 7 minutes to complete. All children were asked the same open-ended question to initiate the substantive phase of the interview. RESULTS Children who had been trained in the open-ended condition provided 2 1/2 times as many details and words in response to the first substantive utterance as did children in the direct introduction condition. Children in the open-ended condition continued to respond more informatively to open-ended utterances in the later (unscripted) portion of the interview. Two-thirds of the children mentioned the core details of the incident in their responses to the first substantive utterance and a further 20% mentioned core details more vaguely. CONCLUSIONS These results demonstrate that children respond more informatively to an open-ended invitation when they have previously been trained to answer such questions rather than more focused questions. These results demonstrate the sensitivity of children to the goals and expectations of forensic interviewers. Structured interview protocols also increase the amount of information provided by young interviewees.

Effects of Investigative Utterance Types on Israeli Children's Responses

This field study is concerned with the effect of interviewing style on childrens reports of sexual abuse. Detailed psycholinguistic analyses of 22 front-line interviews of 5- to 11-year-old Israeli children by a number of interviewers focused on the length (number of words) and richness (number of new details) provided in responses to different types of utterances by the interviewers. As predicted, open-ended invitations yielded significantly longer and more detailed responses than directive, leading, or suggestive utterances, regardless of age. The younger children provided briefer and less detailed responses, however. These findings underscore the value of open-ended prompts in investigative interviews.

The Relation Between Investigative Utterance Types and the Informativeness of Child. Witnesses

Researchers have previously shown that, at least in Israeli investigative interviews, open-ended invitations yield significantly longer and more detailed responses from young witnesses than directive, leading, or suggestive utterances. Detailed psycholinguistic analyses of 45 interviews of 4- to 12-year-old children by police investigators in the United States confirmed that, as in Israel, invitations yielded longer and richer responses than more focused interviewer utterances. The superiority of invitations was greater when the children reported experiencing three or more, rather than only one, incidents of abuse. Invitations were rarely used, however, and the investigators failed to elicit more information from children who reported multiple incidents of abuse than from children who reported only one incident.

The Effects of Intensive Training and Ongoing Supervision on the Quality of Investigative Interviews With Alleged Sex Abuse Victims

Four distinct strategies were employed to train 21 experienced forensic interviewers to interview alleged sex abuse victims (M = 9.20 years of age) in accordance with professionally recommended practices. The structure and informativeness of the 96 interviews they conducted following training were compared with the structure and informativeness of 96 matched interviews conducted by the same interviewers in the 6 months prior to the training. Didactic workshops and instruction in the utilization of highly structured presubstantive interview procedures had little effect on the number of open-ended prompts used to elicit information or on the amount of substantive information elicited in this way. By contrast, intensive training in the use of a highly structured interview protocol, followed by continuing supervision in the form of monthly day-long seminars, supplemented in some cases by detailed individual feedback on recent interviews, yielded dramatic improvements on these measures of interview quality.

Victimization of children with disabilities.

Children with disabilities (CWDs) are more likely to be victims of child abuse but may have more difficulty than their typically developing (TD) peers reporting their experiences. In this study, the authors examined the characteristics of abuse reported by CWDs based on forensic statements made by 40430 alleged abuse victims, 11% categorized as children with minor disabilities, and 1.2% categorized as children with severe disabilities. Proportionally more of the CWDs than of the TD children were allegedly victims of sexual rather than physical abuse. CWDs failed to disclose abuse and delayed disclosure more often than TD suspected victims. CWDs were more likely than TD children to be abused by parent figures and to experience physical abuse resulting in body injury or serious sexual offenses, including those involving penetration, repeated abuse, use of force, and threats. Higher levels of disability were associated with increased risk of sexual abuse. Both the heightened incidence of severe abuse among and the failure to disclose abuse by CWDs should be sources of considerable concern to social welfare and criminal justice agencies.

Criterion-Based Content Analysis: A Field Validation Study.

Transcripts of forensic interviews with 98 alleged victims of child sexual abuse were scored for the presence or absence of certain criteria believed to be more characteristic of accounts concerning experienced than nonexperienced events. Other information regarding the events was independently evaluated by individuals unfamiliar with the childrens accounts. As predicted, more of the CBCA criteria were present in accounts independently rated as Likely or Very Likely to have occurred (M = 6.74) than in accounts of events deemed Unlikely or Very Unlikely to have occurred (M = 4.85). In addition, several of the criteria were helpful in distinguishing between plausible and implausible accounts. The group differences were not as dramatic as those reported in earlier studies, however, and the results suggest caution regarding forensic application of the CBCA system.

Investigative interviews of alleged sexual abuse victims with and without anatomical dolls

Verbal and nonverbal responses by alleged victims of child sexual abuse were coded for length, amount of information, and the manner in which they were elicited by the interviewer. In 16 of the interviews, anatomical dolls were employed for the purposes of demonstration, whereas they were not used in another eight cases matched with respect to other characteristics of the children and the alleged events. Children interviewed with dolls provided an equivalent number of details and spoke as many words in the substantive portion of the interview as did children interviewed without dolls, and interviewers in the two groups used similar probes to elicit information. However, the average responses by the children were significantly longer and more detailed when dolls were not used. Children gave longer and more detailed responses to open-ended invitations when dolls were not used. Caution is necessary when interpreting these findings.

Assessing the credibility of children's allegations of sexual abuse: A survey of recent research

Abstract Alarmed by the increasing numbers of alleged incidents of child sexual abuse, forensic psychologists have attempted to learn whether credible and implausible allegations can be discriminated reliably. Most attention has focused on components of Statement Validity Analysis (SVA), particularly Criterion-Based Content Analysis (CBCA). Recent studies have shown that CBCA scores indeed distinguish plausible from implausible accounts, although the precision is still too poor to permit forensic application. Sensitivity may be enhanced by further improvements in the quality of the investigative interviews on which evaluations of credibility are based, and may be additionally enhanced by development and application of techniques like the Validity Checklist, a little studied component of SVA.

Socioemotional Factors in Child Sexual Abuse Investigations

Two socioemotional factors were explored in association with childrens production of forensic information during sexual abuse investigations: rapport building and interviewers support. The study tested to what extent (a) the length and questioning style in the rapport-building session and (b) the level of support interviewers provided to the children, were associated with the amount of forensic details children provided in their investigation. These associations were explored for more talkative and less talkative children as well as for children of two age groups (4-6 and 7-9 years). A total of 71 forensic interviews of alleged victims of child sexual abuse were subject to a detailed psycholinguistic analysis. Results suggest that richer information in the childs responses is associated with a short and open style rapport-building session as well as with a higher level of interviewers support. This association is especially marked for less talkative children who might be in special need of support and for whom the rapport with the interviewer might be more meaningful.

Children's responses to open‐ended utterances in investigative interviews

Fifty 4- to 13-year-olds were interviewed about incidents of sexual abuse that they had allegedly experienced. The interviewers employed an unusually high number of open-ended prompts, and the analyses focused on the effectiveness of different types of open-ended inquiries. Open-ended prompts yielded significantly longer and more detailed responses than did focused prompts. The main invitation, which initiated the childrens narratives, elicited the longest and most detailed responses. Invitations remained superior to focused questions throughout the interview. The effectiveness of invitations did not vary depending on whether they followed focused or open-ended prompts. There were no age differences in the effectiveness of any types of invitations. Language: en