Karen J. Saywitz

Children's Memories of a Physical Examination Involving Genital Touch: Implications for Reports of Child Sexual Abuse.

Evaluation of child sexual abuse often necessitates interviewing children about genital touch, yet little scientific research exists on how best to obtain childrens reports of genital contact. To examine this issue, 72 five- and seven-year-old girls experienced a standardized medical checkup. For half of the children, the checkup included a vaginal and anal examination (genital condition); for the other half, the checkup included a scoliosis examination instead (nongenital condition). The childrens memories were later solicited through free recall, anatomically detailed doll demonstration, and direct and misleading questions. The majority of children in the genital condition revealed vaginal and anal contact only when asked directly about it. Children in the nongenital condition never falsely reported genital touch in free recall or doll demonstration; when asked directly, the false report rate was low. Significant age differences in free recall and doll demonstration, found only in the nongenital condition, implicated socioemotional factors as suppressing the reports of older children who experienced genital contact.

Children's Knowledge of Legal Terminology

The present study examined age-related patterns in communicative abilities relevant to providing testimony, specifically, knowledge of legal terms commonly used with children in court. Subjects were 60 public school students comprising 3 groups of 20 each in kindergarten, third, and sixth grades. Grade-related patterns emerged in childrens knowledge of legal terms and in their misunderstanding of terms. Results suggest that age-appropriate word choice in the examination of child witnesses may be an important factor in eliciting accurate testimony. Potential mediators of the relation between age and accurate knowledge of legal terminology (i.e., verbal skills, television, viewing of court-related programs, direct experience with the legal system) also were explored. Implications for future research, court preparation, and training of legal professionals in age-appropriate examination of children are discussed.

Children's testimony and their perceptions of stress in and out of the courtroom☆

Modifications of the courtroom environment have been proposed to reduce stress and enhance truth-telling of child witnesses. The present study examines the premise that courtroom environment affects the quality of childrens evidence and childrens perceptions of their own stress. Thirty-four 8- to 10-year-olds participated in an activity and 2 weeks later, their memory for the activity was tested. Half the children were questioned in a mock courtroom in the law school of a major university, and half at their school, both by the same interviewer. Children questioned at court showed impaired memory performance when compared with agemates questioned at school. They also rated certain court-related experiences as more stressful than peers interviewed at school. Furthermore, childrens perceptions of courtroom stress were negatively correlated with completeness of accurate free recall, suggesting a relation between court-related stress and eyewitness memory worthy of further study.

Reducing the Potential for Distortion of Childhood Memories

Abstract In the present research, two studies test the efficacy of an innovative procedure designed to reduce distortion and enhance communication of accurate childhood memories. One hundred two 7-year-olds participated in a staged activity and were randomly assigned to one of two treatment conditions (Intervention or Control). Two weeks later, half of the children participated in the innovative procedure designed to increase resistance to misleading questions by addressing sociolinguistic and socioemotional factors thought to promote acquiescence to misinformation. The other half of the children participated in control sessions and were given motivating instructions to do their best. Then, memory for the staged activity was tested in an interview with an unfamiliar authority figure. The results of both studies suggest that the children who participated in the innovative procedure made significantly fewer errors in response to misleading questions than children in the control groups, hence diminishing acquiescence. This was accomplished without generating additional errors on the other question types. These findings are interpreted as a promising first step toward reducing the potential for distortion in the recall of childhood memories. Implications for adult recall of childhood trauma are discussed.

Interviewing child witnesses: a developmental perspective

This article reviews suggestions derived from the clinical and experimental literatures for interviewing child witnesses. We identify methods for which there is experimental support as well as key issues about which the available research offers little guidance. In a field briming with polarization rather than integration, our goal is to locate and discuss practices that overlap with both clinical consensus and a growing body of research on child development. To accomplish this goal, the first half of the article considers general guidelines for questioning children at an age-appropriate level and in a manner that minimizes the potential for distortion. The second half of the article outlines the phases of a forensic interview in a step-by-step fashion. The suggestions presented highlight a developmental perspective designed to facilitate childrens memory and communicative competence, to address childrens fears, and to facilitate an honest exchange of reliable information.

Implications of developmental research for interviewing children

This article first provides a brief review of recent research to update the investigative interviewer on childrens development of cognition, memory and language. Next, we review results of studies which have focused on the development of childrens specific knowledge about the legal system, and identify developmental and motivational factors which may influence childrens willingness to report in legal settings. Next, clinical and research literature of young childrens experience in pediatric settings offers ecologically compelling data for understanding childrens reports of abusive touch, and strategies used for preparing children for medical procedures may be drawn on for preparation of children in sexual abuse cases. Finally, several issues are identified for future research.

Helping Children Tell What Happened: A Follow-Up Study of the Narrative Elaboration Procedure

In cases of child maltreatment, children are required to recount past experiences in pretrial interviews, courtroom examination, and abuse-focused therapy. Yet their descriptions are often insufficient for risk assessment, legal decision making, and treatment planning. In the present study, we test whether a new procedure—narrative elaboration—facilitates childrens recall without jeopardizing accuracy. Thirty-three second graders participated in a classroom activity. Two weeks later, they were randomly assigned to participate in one of two preparation sessions before being interviewed about the classroom activity: (a) narrative elaboration intervention or (b) control session. The interviewer was an unfamiliar authority figure. The interview entailed free recall (e.g., “What happened?”), cued recall (i.e., an opportunity to elaborate on free recall with visual cues), and follow-up questions. On the cued recall task, children prepared with the narrative elaboration procedure reported significantly more correct information than children in the control group. Performance was improved without increasing error or reducing correct responses to follow-up questions. The implications of these results for questioning suspected child abuse victims are discussed.

Interviewing Children about Real and Fictitious Events: Revisiting the Narrative Elaboration Procedure

Elementary school children participated in a staged event. Two weeks later they were randomly assigned to three interview conditions: (a) a streamlined version of the Narrative Elaboration (NE) procedure involving training in the use of reminder cue cards, (b) exposure to reminder cue cards without training in their use (cue card control group), and (c) a standard interview including no NE training or exposure to reminder cue cards (standard-interview control group). Children in each interview condition were questioned about the staged event and a fictitious event to determine whether children trained in the streamlined NE procedure would provide more information about a staged event than would children in the two control groups and whether the NE interview would result in increased reporting of false information when questioned about a fictitious event. Results indicated that children questioned with the NE interview reported a greater amount of accurate, but not a greater amount of inaccurate, information during cue-card presentation for the staged event than did the cue-card control group. Analyses further indicated that the NE-interview group did not report significantly more false information about the fictitious event than did children in the two control groups. Large standard deviations for the NE-interview childrens cue-card recall indicate that the streamlined NE procedure was useful for many children in reporting the staged event, but may have contributed to a small number of children providing false information for the fictitious event. Further research is being conducted to determine which children may be more likely to be helped and which children may be more likely to provide false information regarding a fictitious event.

Detecting deception in children: event familiarity affects criterion-based content analysis ratings.

Statement Validity Assessment (SVA) is a comprehensive credibility assessment system, with the Criterion-Based Content Analysis (CBCA) as a core component. Worldwide, the CBCA is reported to be the most widely used veracity assessment instrument. We tested and confirmed the hypothesis that CBCA scores are affected by event familiarity; descriptions of familiar events are more likely to be judged true than are descriptions of unfamiliar events. CBCA scores were applied to transcripts of 114 children who recalled a routine medical procedure (control) or a traumatic medical procedure that they had experienced one time (relatively unfamiliar) or multiple times (relatively familiar). CBCA scores were higher for children in the relatively familiar than the relatively unfamiliar condition, and CBCA scores were significantly correlated with age. Results raise serious questions regarding the forensic suitability of the CBCA for assessing the veracity of childrens accounts.

Interviewing children in custody cases: Implications of research and policy for practice

Research on child interviewing has burgeoned over the past 25 years as expectations about childrens agency, competence, and participation in society have changed. This article identifies recent trends in research, policy, and theory with implications for the practice of interviewing children in cases of contested divorce and for the weight to be given the information children provide. A number of fields of relevant research are identified, including studies of families who have participated in the family law system, studies of child witnesses in the field, experimental studies of the effects of interview techniques on childrens memory and suggestibility, and ethnographic methods that elicit childrens views of their own experiences. Finally, a set of 10 principles for practice are delineated based on the best available science.