Forensic Interviewing of Children

Child Forensic Interviewing: Best Practices
Chris Newlin, Linda Cordisco Steele, Andra Chamberlin, Jennifer Anderson, Julie Kenniston, Amy Russell, Heather Stewart, and Viola Vaughan-Eden
Juvenile Justice Bulletin, September 2015, U.S. Dept of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
Highlights
This bulletin consolidates the current knowledge of professionals from several major forensic interview training programs on best practices for interviewing children in cases of alleged abuse. The authors discuss the purpose of the child forensic interview, provide historical context, review overall considerations, and outline each stage of the interview in more detail.

Among the topics that the authors discuss are the following:

• No two children will relate their experiences in the same way or with the same level of detail and clarity. Individual characteristics, interviewer behavior, family relationships, community influences, and cultural and societal attitudes determine whether, when, and how they disclose abuse.
• The literature clearly explains the dangers of repeated questioning and duplicative interviews; however, some children require more time to become comfortable with the process and the interviewer.
• Encouraging children to give detailed responses early in the interview enhances their responses later on.
• Forensic interviewers should use open-ended questions and should allow for silence or hesitation without moving to more focused prompts too quickly. Although such questions may encourage greater detail, they may also elicit potentially erroneous responses if the child feels compelled to reach beyond his or her stored memory.

Post-event information affects children’s autobiographical memory after one year.
London, Kamala, Bruck, Maggie, Melnyk, Laura.
Law and Human Behavior, Vol 33(4), Aug, 2009. pp. 344-355.
Abstract:
In two experiments, we examined whether post-event information (PEI) about true and false events persisted in children’s reports after approximately 1 year. In Experiment 1, 4- to 6-year-olds were given PEI and then were given memory tests 2 weeks and 15 months later. Although PEI appeared in free recall at the initial testing, it decreased substantially by the long-term test. In contrast, on recognition tasks the children showed facilitation and misinformation effects at initial and follow-up tests. Experiment 2 replicated lasting misinformation and facilitation effects in recognition memory among 4- to 9-year olds who were tested after 1-week and 10-month delays. We conclude that true and false reminders about an experienced event continue to affect children’s memory approximately 1 year later.

Unwarranted Assumptions about Children’s Testimonial Accuracy
Stephen J. Ceci,1 Sarah Kulkofsky, J. Zoe Klemfuss, Charlotte D. Sweeney, and Maggie Bruck
Annu. Rev. Clin. Psychol. 2007. 3:311–28
Abstract
We examine eight unwarranted assumptions made by expert witnesses, forensic interviewers, and legal scholars about the reliability of children’s eyewitness reports. The first four assumptions modify some central beliefs about the nature of suggestive interviews, age-related differences in resistance to suggestion, and thresholds necessary to produce tainted reports. The fifth unwarranted assumption involves the influence of both individual and interviewer factors in determining children’s suggestibility. The sixth unwarranted assumption concerns the claim that suggested reports are detectable. The seventh unwarranted assumption concerns new findings about how children deny, disclose, and/or recant their abuse. Finally, we examine unwarranted statements about the value of science to the forensic arena. It is important not only for researchers but also expert witnesses and court-appointed psychologists to be aware of these unwarranted assumptions.

Children’s memories of experienced and nonexperienced events following repeated interviews.
Quas, Jodi A. Schaaf, Jennifer M.
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Vol 83(4), Dec, 2002. pp. 304-338.
Abstract:
The present study compared 72 childrens’ (aged 3 yrs and 5 yrs) reports of a true or false play interaction following repeated interviews. Final interviews were conducted either by the same researcher or by a new researcher. Age-related improvements in performance were evident. Also, 3-yr-olds questioned repeatedly about an entirely false event made more errors in response to specific questions than 3-yr-olds questioned repeatedly about false details of a true event. Five-yr-olds who were questioned about the false event, however, were particularly accurate when answering questions about never-experienced body touch. Interviewer familiarity was associated with decreases in the amount of narrative detail 5-yr-olds provided in free-recall and with increases in 3-yr-olds’ accuracy in response to direct questions. Both errors and response latency on a cognitive matching task were related to children’s suggestibility. A list of interview questions is appended.

The suggestibility of children’s memory for being touched: Planting, erasing, and changing memories.
Pezdek, Kathy, Roe, Chantal
Law and Human Behavior, Vol 21(1), Feb, 1997. pp. 95-106.
Abstract:
Investigated claims that it is easy to suggestively plant false memories in children, by comparing the relative vulnerability to suggestibility of changed, planted, and erased memories. 80 4-yr-olds and 80 10-yr-olds either were touched in a specific way or were not touched at all, and it was later suggested that a different touch, a completely new touch, or no touch at all had occurred. The suggestibility effect occurred only in the changed memory condition; the difference between the experimental changed condition and the corresponding control condition was significant. In the planted and erased memory conditions no suggestibility effect occurred; there was no significant reduction in the experimental groups relative to the corresponding control conditions. Thus, although it is relatively easy to suggest to a child a change in an event that was experienced, it is less likely that an event can be planted in or erased from memory. Findings suggest that it may be inappropriate to provide courtroom testimony regarding the probability of suggestively planting false memories based on the classic suggestibility research, which has largely been restricted to the study of suggestively changing memories.