The present study explored the effects of different types of narrative practices on the accuracy and abundance of information elicited from children and the disclosure of secrets. Seventy-one children ages 3-6 years experienced a scripted encounter with a photographer; then they were interviewed about the event after participating in one of four…

In this brief review, we reflect upon the key contributions of research examining children's eyewitness testimony. Children's testimonial ability became a focus of interest for researchers about 40 years ago in the wake of several high-profile child abuse cases that prompted questions about children's reliability in the face of problematic…

Twenty-seven autistic children and 32 typically developing (TD) peers were questioned about an experienced event after a two-week delay and again after a two-month delay, using the Revised National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Investigative Interview Protocol. Recall prompts elicited more detailed and more accurate…

Twenty-seven 6- to 15-year-old children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 32 typically developing (TD) children were questioned about their participation in a set of activities after a 2-week delay and again after a 2-month delay using a best practice interview protocol. Interviews were coded for completeness with respect to the gist of the…

This study examined whether the implementation of Section 28 of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act (1999) improved lawyers' questioning strategies when examining child witnesses in England. The government's Section 28 pilot study involved judges holding Ground Rules Hearings, during which restrictions and limitations were placed on the…

This study examined whether the implementation of Section 28 (S28) of the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act and the introduction of mandatory ground rules hearings reduced the complexity of the questions English lawyers asked when examining child witnesses. This study compared cases with (n = 43) and without (n = 43) the S28 special measures…

Children often answer questions when they do not have the requisite knowledge or when they do not understand them. We examined whether "ground rules" instruction--to say "I don't know," to tell the truth, and to correct the interviewer when necessary--assisted children in applying those rules during an interview about a past…

Children must describe maltreatment coherently for their testimony to be influential in court. We know little about how well children with intellectual disabilities (CWID) describe their experiences relative to typically developing (TD) children, despite CWID's vulnerability to maltreatment. We investigated children's reports of an experienced…

Objective: To examine the ability of children with intellectual disabilities to give reliable accounts of personally experienced events, considering the effects of delay, severity of disability, and the types of interview prompt used. Method: In a between-subjects design, we compared children with intellectual disabilities (7-12 years) that fell…

Objective: The study focused on children's nonverbal behavior in investigative interviews exploring suspicions of child abuse. The key aims were to determine whether non-verbal behavior in the pre-substantive phases of the interview predicted whether or not children would disclose the alleged abuse later in the interview and to identify…

The current study explored the expected consequences of disclosure discussed by 204 5- to 13-year-old suspected victims of child sexual abuse during the course of investigative interviews conducted using the NICHD Investigative Interview Protocol. Expected consequences were mentioned in nearly half of all interviews, with older children and those…

Because child abuse victims are often the only available sources of information about their experiences, extensive efforts have been made to understand how to maximize their informativeness. There is now broad international consensus regarding optimal interview practices, and broad awareness that children's informativeness increases when…

Objectives: The study was designed to assess the effectiveness of the flexibly structured NICHD Investigative Interview Protocol for child sexual abuse (CSA) investigative interviews by police officers and mental health workers in Quebec. The NICHD Protocol was designed to operationalize "best practice" guidelines and to help forensic…

In this paper we present a cross-cultural study of toddler interactions with other juveniles (1-15 years of age) in two small-scale societies, the Bofi farmers and foragers of Central Africa. This paper provides a unique perspective because child development studies have predominantly been conducted in Western industrialized settings. Most studies…

Fourteen interviewers conducted 51 investigations of child sexual abuse with children (ages 4.5 to 12.9 years). Interviewers used a script including either open-ended questions or direct questions. Both rapport-building scripts took about seven minutes. Children who had received the open-ended training provided twice as many details and words…