Kelly McWilliams

Family Reminiscing Style: Parent Gender and Emotional Focus in Relation to Child Well-Being

Family reminiscing is a critical part of family interaction related to child outcome. In this study, we extended previous research by examining both mothers and fathers, in two-parent racially diverse middle-class families, reminiscing with their 9- to 12-year-old children about both the facts and the emotional aspects of shared positive and negative events. Mothers were more elaborative than fathers, and both mothers and fathers elaborated and evaluated more about the facts of positive than negative events, but there were no differences in parental reminiscing about the emotional aspects of these events. Fathers showed a more consistent reminiscing style across event and information type, whereas mothers seem to show a more nuanced style differentiated by topic. Most interesting, maternal elaborations and evaluations about the facts of negative events were related to higher child well-being, whereas paternal elaborations and evaluations about the emotional aspects of both positive and negative events were related to lower child well-being. Implications for the gendered nature of reminiscing are discussed.

Child maltreatment, trauma-related psychopathology, and eyewitness memory in children and adolescents.

Two experiments were conducted to examine eyewitness memory in children and adolescents (9- to 15-years-old) with and without known histories of maltreatment (e.g., physical abuse, exposure to domestic violence). In Experiment 1, participants (N = 35) viewed a positive film clip depicting a congenial interaction between family members. In Experiment 2, participants (N = 31) watched a negative film clip in which a family argument was shown. Younger age and higher levels of trauma-related psychopathology significantly predicted commission errors to direct questions when the positive family interaction had been viewed, but not when the negative family interaction had been shown. Maltreatment history was not a significant unique predictor of memory performance for the positive or negative film clip. Implications for a scientific understanding of the effects of child maltreatment on memory are discussed.

Children's Memory for Their Mother's Murder: Accuracy, Suggestibility, and Resistance to Suggestion

From its inception, child eyewitness memory research has been guided by dramatic legal cases that turn on the testimony of children. Decades of scientific research reveal that, under many conditions, children can provide veracious accounts of traumatic experiences. Scientific studies also document factors that lead children to make false statements. In this paper we describe a legal case in which children testified about their mothers murder. We discuss factors that may have influenced the accuracy of the childrens eyewitness memory. Childrens suggestibility and resistance to suggestion are illustrated. Expert testimony, based on scientific research, can aid the trier of fact when children provide crucial evidence in criminal investigations and courtroom trials about tragic events.

The Effects of the Hypothetical Putative Confession and Negatively Valenced Yes/No Questions on Maltreated and Nonmaltreated Children’s Disclosure of a Minor Transgression

This study examined the effects of the hypothetical putative confession (telling children “What if I said that [the suspect] told me everything that happened and he said he wants you to tell the truth?”) and negatively valenced yes/no questions varying in their explicitness (“Did the [toy] break?” vs. “Did something bad happen to the [toy]?”) on two hundred and six 4- to 9-year-old maltreated and nonmaltreated children’s reports, half of whom had experienced toy breakage and had been admonished to keep the breakage a secret. The hypothetical putative confession increased the likelihood that children disclosed breakage without increasing false reports. The yes/no questions elicited additional disclosures of breakage but also some false reports. The less explicit questions (referencing “something bad”) were as effective in eliciting true reports as the questions explicitly referencing breakage. Pairing affirmative answers to the yes/no questions with recall questions asking for elaboration allowed for better discrimination between true and false reports. The results suggest promising avenues for interviewers seeking to increase true disclosures without increasing false reports.

Maltreated Children’s Ability to Make Temporal Judgments Using a Recurring Landmark Event

This study examined whether maltreated children are capable of judging the location and order of significant events with respect to a recurring landmark event. One hundred sixty-seven 6- to 10-year-old maltreated children were asked whether the current day, their last court visit, and their last change in placement were “near” their birthday and “before or after” their birthday. Children showed some understanding that the target event was “near” and “before” their birthday when their birthday was less than 3 months hence, but were relatively insensitive to preceding birthdays. Therefore, children exhibited a prospective bias, preferentially answering with reference to a forthcoming birthday rather than a past birthday. The results demonstrate that the recurring nature of some landmark events makes questions about them referentially ambiguous and children’s answers subject to misinterpretation.

Wrongful Acquittals of Sexual Abuse

Ross Cheit’s book The Witch-Hunt Narrative highlights the difficulties of prosecuting child sexual abuse. Drawing examples from a single case, Alex A., we examine the ways in which false acquittals of sexual abuse are likely to occur. First, prosecutors tend to question children in ways that undermine their productivity and credibility. Second, prosecutors have difficulty in explaining to juries the dynamics of sexual abuse and disclosure, making children’s acquiescence to abuse and their failure to disclose when abuse first occurs incredible. Third, attorneys undermine children’s credibility by pushing them to provide difficult to estimate temporal and numerical information. A post-script to the Alex A. case illustrates the costs of wrongful acquittals.

Ask Versus Tell: Potential Confusion When Child Witnesses are Questioned About Conversations

Children’s potential confusion between “ask” and “tell” can lead to misunderstandings when child witnesses are asked to report prior conversations. The verbs distinguish both between interrogating and informing, and between requesting and commanding. Children’s understanding was examined using both field (Study 1) and laboratory methods (Studies 2–4). Study 1 examined 100 5- to 12-year-olds’ trial testimony in child sexual abuse cases, and found that potentially ambiguous use of ask and tell was common, typically found in yes–no questions that elicited unelaborated answers, and virtually never clarified by attorneys or child witnesses. Studies 2 to 4 examined 345 maltreated 6- to 11-year-olds’ understanding of ask and tell. The results suggest that children initially comprehend telling as saying, and thus believed that asking is a form of telling. As such, they often endorsed asking as telling when asked yes–no questions, but distinguished between asking and telling when explicitly asked to choose. Their performance was impaired by movement between different use of the words. Child witnesses’ characterization of their conversations can easily be misconstrued by the way in which they are questioned, leading questioners to misinterpret whether they were coached by disclosure recipients or coerced by abuse suspects.

Spatial language, question type, and young children’s ability to describe clothing: Legal and developmental implications

Children’s descriptions of clothing placement and touching with respect to clothing are central to assessing child sexual abuse allegations. This study examined children’s ability to answer the types of questions attorneys and interviewers typically ask about clothing, using the most common spatial terms (on/off, outside/inside, over/under). Ninety-seven 3- to 6-year-olds were asked yes/no (e.g., “Is the shirt on?”), forced-choice (e.g., “Is the shirt on or off?”), open-choice (e.g., “Is the shirt on or off or something else?”), or where questions (e.g., “Where is the shirt?”) about clothing using a human figurine, clothing, and stickers. Across question types, children generally did well with simple clothing or sticker placement (e.g., pants completely on), except for yes/no questions about “over,” suggesting children had an underinclusive understanding of the word. When clothing or sticker placement was intermediate (e.g., pants around ankles, and therefore neither completely on nor off), children performed poorly except when asked where questions. A similar task using only stickers and boxes, analogous to forensic interviewers’ assessments of children’s understanding, was only weakly predictive of children’s ability to describe clothing. The results suggest that common methods of questioning young children about clothing may lead to substantial misinterpretation.

Basic Principles of Interviewing the Child Eyewitness

Based on extensive developmental science research, we discuss the general findings and themes for forensic interviewers to keep in mind when interviewing children about sexual abuse. Our review is divided into three separate sections: the interviewee (i.e., the child eyewitness), the interviewer, and the interview. In the interviewee section, we provide information on both general characteristics (child age, gender) as well as specific individual differences (psychopathology, maltreatment histories) that have been theoretically linked and empirically shown to influence children’s memory abilities and reporting. Next, in the interviewer section, we discuss such topics as rapport building and interviewer bias. We conclude with a discussion of factors within the interview that may influence a child’s report, such as interview instructions, question type, and use of interview props. It should be noted that the information provided in this chapter is not all inclusive of every factor that has been identified to influence children’s memories and eyewitness accounts for traumatic events. Rather this brief review covers some of the main areas of consensus from, and a number of caveats about, the child eyewitness field. We end with a brief list of factors that forensic interviewers might want to consider prior to interviewing a child about sexual abuse.