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Peer reviewed: True, Funder: Jacobs Foundation; FundRef: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100003986, Funder: Nuffield Foundation; FundRef: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000279, Statements by alleged victims are important when child abuse is prosecuted; triers-of-fact often attend to nonverbal emotional expressions when evaluating those statements. This study examined the associations among interviewer supportiveness, children's nonverbal emotions, and informativeness during 100 forensic interviews with alleged victims of child abuse. Raters coded the silent videotapes for children's nonverbal emotional expressions while other raters coded the transcripts for interviewer support, children's verbal emotions, and informativeness. Results showed that children's nonverbal signals were more common than and preceded the verbal signs. Interviewer support was associated with children's expressivity. When children expressed more nonverbal emotions, they were more responsive during the pre-substantive phases and more informative about the abuse. Nonverbal emotions partially mediated the association between support and informativeness. The findings underline the value of nonverbal emotional expression during forensic interviews and demonstrate how the interviewers' supportive demeanor can facilitate children's emotional displays and increase informativeness.

BACKGROUND: Emotions can powerfully affect memory retrieval although this effect has seldom been studied in everyday contexts. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to explore the association between children's verbal emotional expressions and the type of information reported during forensic interviews. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: The sample included 198 interviews with 4- to 14-year-old (M = 9.36, SD = 2.37) alleged victims of repeated physical abuse perpetrated by family members conducted using the Revised NICHD Protocol which emphasizes a supportive interviewing style. METHODS: Interview videos were transcribed and each conversational turn was coded to reflect the amount and type of children's verbal emotional expressions, forensic information provided, interviewers' demeanor, and type of question asked. RESULTS: The verbal expression of negative emotions was positively associated with the production of more central details (β = 0.29, SE = 0.05, p < 0.001) and peripheral details (β = 0.66, SE = 0.07, p < 0.001), while the verbal expression of positive emotions was correlated with peripheral details (β = 0.29, SE = 0.15, p = 0.047). The verbal expression of negative emotions was associated with the production of more specific details (β = 0.73, SE = 0.06, p < 0.001]) and less generic information (β = -0.39, SE = 0.18, p = 0.029) whereas positive emotions were associated only with increased specific information (β = 0.28, SE = 0.12, p = 0.025). CONCLUSIONS: These findings highlight how emotional expression, especially of negative emotions, enhances the quantity and quality of children's reports in forensic contexts.

Since its introduction into the field of deception detection, the verbal channel has become a rapidly growing area of research. The basic assumption is that liars differ from truth tellers in their verbal behaviour, making it possible to classify them by inspecting their verbal accounts. However, as noted in conferences and in private communication between researchers, the field of verbal lie detection faces several challenges that merit focused attention. The first author therefore proposed a workshop with the mission of promoting solutions for urgent issues in the field. Nine researchers and three practitioners with experience in credibility assessments gathered for 3 days of discussion at Bar-Ilan University (Israel) in the first international verbal lie detection workshop. The primary session of the workshop took place the morning of the first day. In this session, each of the participants had up to 10 min to deliver a brief message, using just one slide. Researchers were asked to answer the question: ‘In your view, what is the most urgent, unsolved question/issue in verbal lie detection?’ Similarly, practitioners were asked: ‘As a practitioner, what question/issue do you wish verbal lie detection research would address?’ The issues raised served as the basis for the discussions that were held throughout the workshop. The current paper first presents the urgent, unsolved issues raised by the workshop group members in the main session, followed by a message to researchers in the field, designed to deliver the insights, decisions, and conclusions resulting from the discussions.

Because intensely reluctant children often fail to report being abused even when they are supportively interviewed, the Revised NICHD (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development) Protocol (RP) guides interviewers to delay discussion of sensitive topics and build rapport before scheduling a follow-up interview in which children might feel more comfortable. We sought to determine whether adherence to these recommendations was associated with the children’s propensity to make allegations. Repeated forensic interviews were conducted with 202 Israeli children aged 3-14 who did not make allegations in the first interview, but of whom 104 made allegations during the second interview. The interviews were coded to identify interviewers’ provision of support and types of substantive questions (invitations vs. closed-ended), as well as children’s signs of reluctance, responsiveness, and informativeness. Interviewer behavior was represented with a latent variable reflecting the interviewers’ expression of support, use of invitations, and the avoidance of closed-ended questions. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) showed that adherence to the suggested interviewing model was positively associated with children being more likely to allege abuse (total effect: β = .29). This association was mediated by children’s enhanced cooperativeness in the second interview (indirect effect: β = .16). These findings suggest that repeated interviews can be useful despite the additional financial costs.

Supportive forensic interviews conducted in accordance with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Revised Protocol (RP) help many alleged victims describe abusive experiences. When children remain reluctant to make allegations, the RP guides interviewers to (a) focus on rapport building and nonsuggestive support in a first interview, and (b) plan a second interview to allow continued rapport building before exploring for possible abuse. We explored the dynamics of such two-session RP interviews. Of 204 children who remained reluctant in an initial interview, we focused on 104 who made allegations when re-interviewed a few days later. A structural equation model revealed that interviewer support during the first session predicted children's cooperation during the rapport-building phase of the second session, which, in turn, predicted more spontaneous allegations, which were associated with the interviewers’ enhanced use of open-ended questions. Together, these factors mediated the effects of support on children's free recall of forensically important information. This highlighted the importance of emphasizing rapport with reluctant children, confirming that some children may need more time to build rapport even with supportive interviewers.

Background Child Maltreatment (CM) is a worldwide phenomenon. Literature suggests that children with disabilities are at increased risk for CM. However, limited information exists regarding if such increased risk is noted in community primary care clinics. Aim To report on the incidence of CM in children with and without disabilities attending community primary care clinics. Method This was a cohort study of children belonging to a Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) in Israel. The study group consisted of children with disabilities and the control group consisted of children without disabilities. Formal reports to child protection services, medical and sociodemographic data were extracted from designated documentation and medical records. Results The odds to be identified as suspected CM, after adjusting for sociodemographic variables, was 6.2 times higher among children with disabilities compared to children without disabilities and 5.0 times higher among children with severe vs. mild disability. Conclusions Developmental disability is a risk factor for CM, and is noted even more seriously in community primary care clinics. CM positively correlated with the severity of disability. The presented data marks higher figures than previously reported, enhancing understanding of the scope of the problem and its relation to the type of organization being examined.

Summary: Although many children are reluctant to disclose abuse due to embarrassment, fear, and the anticipation of negative consequences, researchers have only recently begun to examine whether forensic interviewers can be trained to manage children's reluctance. In this study, the supportiveness of 53 experienced interviewers was assessed in their interviews with 321 3- to 14-year-old alleged victims, each conducted during the course of training to use the Revised Protocol (RP). The use of support increased, especially between levels evident at baseline and in the last two interviews assessed. Over time, instances of inadequate support and insensitivity to children's reluctance became less common. Younger children received proportionally more support, including inadequate support, than older children. The RP training did not affect the extensive use of free recall-based questions. Findings highlight the benefits of continued supervision and training.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A major challenge in cases of child sexual abuse (CSA) is determining the credibility of children's reports. Consequently cases may be misclassified as false or deemed 'no judgment possible'. Based on a large national sample of reports of CSA made in Israel in 2014, the study examines child and event characteristics contributing to the probability that reports of abuse would be judged credible. National data files of all children aged 3-14, who were referred for investigation following suspected victimization of sexual abuse, and had disclosed sexual abuse, were analyzed. Cases were classified as either 'credible' or 'no judgment possible'. The probability of reaching a 'credible' judgment was examined in relation to characteristics of the child (age, gender, cognitive delay, marital status of the parents,) and of the abusive event (abuse severity, frequency, perpetrator-victim relationship, perpetrator's use of grooming, and perpetrator's use of coercion), controlling for investigator's identity at the cluster level of the analysis. Of 1563 cases analyzed, 57.9% were assessed as credible. The most powerful predictors of a credible judgment were older age and absence of a cognitive delay. Reports of children to married parents, who experienced a single abusive event that involved perpetrator's use of grooming, were also more likely to be judged as credible. Rates of credible judgments found are lower than expected suggesting under-identification of truthful reports of CSA. In particular, those cases of severe and multiple abuse involving younger and cognitively delayed children are the ones with the lowest chances of being assessed as credible.

Children’s testimony is often critical to the initiation of legal proceedings in abuse cases. In forensic interviews, the expression of emotions can powerfully enhance both the quality of children’s statements and perceptions that their statements are coherent and credible. However, children rarely express their emotions when reporting abusive events. The Revised The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Protocol (RP) was designed to emphasize socioemotional communication during forensic interviews and thus should be associated with more extensive and diverse expressions of emotions by alleged victims of abuse. The present study focused on forensic interviews (178 using the Revised and 100 using the Standard NICHD Protocol) with victims of physical child abuse whose allegations were corroborated using independent evidence. Detailed content coding showed that the RP was associated with the expression of more different emotions, more expression of abuse-related emotions, and more expression of emotions related to the interview context. Emotional expressiveness was associated with increased informativeness, and the association between the type of protocol and informativeness was fully mediated by emotional expressiveness. These results suggest that the Revised Protocol facilitates the expression of emotions by alleged victims of abuse in a way that enhances the value of children’s testimony in multiple ways.

Child maltreatment victims are often reluctant to report abuse when formally interviewed. Evidence-based guidelines like the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Standard Investigative Interview Protocol do not adequately address such reluctance because they are focused on cognitive rather than socio-emotional strategies. The present study was designed to determine whether the Revised NICHD Protocol, which emphasizes supportive interviewing more than the Standard Protocol does, might predict increases in the overall informativeness and reductions in the reluctance of alleged victims. A total of 254 interviews, 166 using the Revised Protocol and 88 using the Standard Protocol, were conducted with 4.06- to 13.98-year-old children (M = 9.20, SD = 2.49) who disclosed multiple incidents of physical abuse by their parents and were thus expected to be more reluctant than victims of extrafamilial abuse. We coded indices of interviewer support and question types, children’s reluctance, and informativeness in each utterance during the substantive phases of the interviews. The Revised Protocol was associated with better interviewer support and questioning as well as reduced reluctance and increased informativeness on the part of the children. These findings document the value of training interviewers to attend to the socio-emotional needs of suspected abuse victims during investigative interviews., Nuffield and Jacobs Foundations, Haruv Institute

Socio-emotional dynamics were examined in 230 forensic interviews of 3- to -13-year-old Israeli children who disclosed chronic physical abuse that could be substantiated. Half of the children were ...

A large national sample of 4,775 reports of child physical and sexual abuse made in Israel in 2014 was analyzed in order to examine whether assessments of credibility would vary according to abuse type, physical or sexual, and whether child and event characteristics contributing to the probability that reports of abuse would be determined as credible would be similar or different in child physical abuse (CPA) and child sexual abuse (CSA) cases. Results revealed that CPA reports were less likely to be viewed as credible (41.9%) compared to CSA reports (56.7%). Multigroup path analysis, however, indicated equivalence in predicting factors. In a unified model for both types of abuse, salient predictors of a credible judgment were older age, lack of a cognitive delay, and the alleged abusive event being a onetime less severe act. Over and beyond the effects of these factors, abuse type significantly contributed to the prediction of credibility judgments.

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to review an evidence-based tool for training child forensic interviewers called the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Protocol (NICHD Protocol), with a specific focus on how the Protocol is being adapted in various countries.Design/methodology/approach– The authors include international contributions from experienced trainers, practitioners, and scientists, who are already using the Protocol or whose national or regional procedures have been directly influenced by the NICHD Protocol research (Canada, Finland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, and USA). Throughout the review, these experts comment on: how and when the Protocol was adopted in their country; who uses it; training procedures; challenges to implementation and translation; and other pertinent aspects. The authors aim to further promote good interviewing practice by sharing the experiences of these international experts.Findings– The NICHD Protocol can be easily incorporated into existing training programs worldwide and is available for free. It was originally developed in English and Hebrew and is available in several other languages.Originality/value– This paper reviews an evidence-based tool for training child forensic interviewers called the NICHD Protocol. It has been extensively studied and reviewed over the past 20 years. This paper is unique in that it brings together practitioners who are actually responsible for training forensic interviewers and conducting forensic interviews from all around the world.

Children's unwillingness to report abuse places them at risk for re-victimization, and interviewers who do not respond sensitively to that unwillingness may increase the likelihood that victims will not disclose abuse. Interviewer support and children's reluctance were examined on a turn-by-turn basis using sequential analyses in 199 forensic interviews of 3- to 13-year-olds who alleged maltreatment. Half of the children were interviewed using the Revised Protocol that emphasized rapport-building (RP), the others using the Standard National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Protocol (SP). When using the RP, interviewers provided proportionally more support than when using the SP, but even when using the RP they did not specifically provide support when children expressed reluctance. The RP promoted immediate cooperation when reluctant utterances were met with support, however, suggesting that supportive statements were valuable. The findings enhance our understanding of children's willingness to participate in investigative interviews and the means through which interviewers can foster the comfort and well-being of young witnesses.

The primary aim of the study was to evaluate investigative interviews from the perspectives of the children, comparing children who drew with children who did not. One hundred twenty-five children, alleged victims of sexual abuse, were asked about their investigative experience. The uniqueness of the study is that all of the interviews were conducted according to the NICHD Protocol and that children were randomly assigned into one of the two research conditions (drawing vs. non-drawing). The results clearly demonstrate the advantage that drawing has on the children's experience of the investigation, with children in the drawing group more often reporting feelings of hope and success. This study provides practical guidelines for practitioners by emphasizing the beneficial effects that drawing can have. The study stresses the importance of integrating into forensic investigations interventions that enhance children's testimonies and ensure that the investigation is an empowering experience that generates feelings of trust, self-worth, and justice.

Professional guidelines for forensic interviews of children emphasize cognitive factors associated with memory retrieval and pay less attention to emotional factors that may inhibit cooperativeness. Can an additional focus on rapport-building alter the dynamics of interviews with alleged victims of intra-familial abuse, who are often uncooperative? Transcripts of interviews with 199 suspected victims who made allegations when interviewed were coded to identify expressions of interviewer support and children’s reluctance and uncooperativeness in the pre-substantive portions of the interviews. Half of the children were interviewed using a Protocol that emphasized enhanced rapport-building and non-suggestive support, the others using the standard NICHD Protocol. Although there were no group differences in the use of recall-based questions, interviews conducted using the rapport-focused Protocol contained more supportive comments and fewer unsupportive comments. Children interviewed in this way showed less reluctance and the level of reluctance was in turn associated with the number of forensically relevant details provided by the children. A focus on enhanced rapport-building thus altered interview dynamics without changing the appropriateness or forensic riskiness of the questions asked.

Objective: The present study was designed to test the effects of repeated retrievals in the course of forensic investigations with children who are the alleged victims of sexual abuse. Method: Using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development protocol, 56 children participated in a first free-recall interview that was followed by a second interview composed of a repeated free-recall phase that was then followed by closed questions. Results: In the second interview, children reported 58% new forensically relevant details. Increased production in the repeated retrieval was especially marked for younger children and for children who provided poor narratives in their first interview. Conclusion: This study provides practical guidelines for social work practitioners. The study stresses the importance of repeated retrieval when interviewing children on alleged abuse. The results of the current study emphasize that the first retrieval from memory in never enough. Rather, repeated open-ended questioning can produce richer narratives from children that contain forensically relevant information.

Objective The current study aimed to explore the frequency and effects of multipart prompts on the testimonies of children who were alleged victims of sexual abuse and were interviewed using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Investigative Protocol. The effects of the multipart prompts were studied by considering the type of prompt given to the children and examining the richness of the children's testimonies (e.g., the number of words and the number of forensic details) and the ways the children contended with these prompts (e.g., which demand they answered, whether they signaled misunderstanding). Method 71 Israeli children aged 4–9 years were interviewed after a complaint of single incident of sexual abuse by a perpetrator who was not a family member. All of the interviews that met the specified criteria and were conducted within a specified period were included in this study. Two raters identified simple versus multipart prompts and analyzed the children's responses. Results The results clearly showed that multipart prompts were used in most interviews, regardless of the child's age. An average of 5.58 multipart prompts per interview was given. The effects of the multipart prompts were destructive and harmed the length and the richness of the children's testimonies. Children of all ages failed to signal their lack of understanding of multipart prompts, and 24% of their responses were unintelligible. When the children did produce a relevant and substantive answer, they primarily responded to the last demand in the multipart prompt and rarely provided an answer to both demands. Conclusions The study clearly indicates that even well-trained investigative interviewers present inappropriate multipart prompts to children. The findings contribute to the existing knowledge about the adverse effect that multipart prompts have on children's narratives, indicating that children of all ages provided poorer testimonies in response to multipart prompts. The systematic knowledge accumulated in both laboratory and field studies indicates that it is necessary to eliminate the use of multipart prompts by updating existing practical guidelines and training courses.

This study examined age differences in 299 preschoolers’ responses to investigative interviewers’ questions exploring the suspected occurrence of child abuse. Analyses focused on the children’s tendencies to respond (a) at all, (b) appropriately to the issue raised by the investigator, and (c) informatively, providing previously undisclosed information. Linear developmental trends characterized all types of responding. When the types of prompts were considered, 3- to 4-year-olds responded slightly more informatively to specific (directive) recall prompts than to open-ended prompts whereas children aged 5 and older were more responsive to open-ended recall prompts. The findings suggest that even 3-year-olds can provide information about experienced events when recall processes are activated, although the ability to provide narrative responses to open-ended recall prompts only becomes reliable later in development.

This study was designed to explore the effects of event drawing during investigative interviews on the richness of the accounts made by children. The sample included 125 children aged 4 to 14 years, alleged victims of sexual abuse. The children were first interviewed with open-ended invitations before they were randomly assigned into one of two interview conditions: with (n = 69) or without (n = 56) event drawing, and then reinterviewed. Children in the drawing group disclosed more free recall information about the abusive events than children in the comparison group, including central details about people, actions, time, and location of the incidents. The effect of drawing was evident regardless of child’s age, gender, type of abuse, and time delay. These findings suggest that event drawing, as used in this study, can enhance children’s forensic statements in child abuse investigations.

Objectives The study was designed to explore whether the credibility of children's statements regarding their alleged experiences of child sexual abuse could be assessed in a more valid and reliable way when investigative interviews were conducted using the NICHD protocol rather than in an unstructured manner. Methods Forty-two experienced Israeli youth investigators each assessed the credibility of allegations of sexual abuse made by alleged victims of sexual abuse when interviewed either with or without the protocol. Half of the alleged incidents were judged likely to have happened (“plausible”) on the basis of independent evidence, while half were deemed unlikely to have happened (“implausible”). Results More non-protocol than protocol interviews were rated as “No judgment possible” rather than either credible or incredible. Allegations made in protocol interviews were more accurately rated as credible or incredible when they were either plausible or implausible, respectively, than those made in non-protocol statements. Levels of inter-rater reliability were also higher when protocol interviews were rated. The differences were significant only for plausible cases, however. Conclusions The use of the NICHD protocol facilitated the assessment of credibility by child investigators although incredible allegations (those describing incidents that were unlikely to have happened) remained difficult to detect, even when the protocol was used.

Objective The goal of the present study was to examine how children disclosed sexual abuse by alleged perpetrators who were not family members. Methodology Thirty alleged victims of sexual abuse and their parents were interviewed. The children were interviewed using the NICHD Investigative Interview Protocol by six experienced youth investigators. The same principles were followed when the parents were asked to describe in detail what had happened since the abusive incidents. The statements made by the children and parents were then content analyzed. Major characteristics of the children's and parents’ reported behaviors were identified by two independent raters. Findings More than half (53%) of the children delayed disclosure for between 1 week and 2 years, fewer than half first disclosed to their parents, and over 40% did not disclose spontaneously but did so only after they were prompted; 50% of the children reported feeling afraid or ashamed of their parents’ responses, and their parents indeed tended to blame the children or act angrily. The disclosure process varied depending on the children's ages, the severity and frequency of abuse, the parents’ expected reactions, the suspects’ identities, and the strategies they had used to foster secrecy. Conclusions The children's willingness to disclose abuse to their parents promptly and spontaneously decreased when they expected negative reactions, especially when the abuse was more serious. A strong correlation between predicted and actual parental reactions suggested that the children anticipated their parents’ likely reactions very well.

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.

Multiple interviews with children alleging sexual abuse are not uncommon. Researchers expressed concern that repeated investigations may create and preserve inaccurate details. However, studies indicated that repeated open-ended interviews are not necessarily harmful and may have advantages. Forensic interviews were conducted with 40 children, alleged victims of sexual abuse, according to the NICHD investigative protocol. The children were re-interviewed after a short break. The information obtained in the second interview was almost 25% new. The first interview yielded a larger number of details, both central and peripheral, but the proportion of central details was larger in the second interview. The proportion of details repeated in both interviews was surprisingly low, and most of the original information was not included. Older children repeated more information than younger ones. The data suggest that a repeated forensic interview may elicit new information and preserve central details. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Forty-three victims of sexual abuse averaging 9.78 years of age and 52 youths who admitted abusing them were interviewed about the abusive incidents. Forensically relevant details provided by the victims were categorised as confirmed, contradicted or ignored by the perpetrators. Most (66.6%) of the details were ignored, but details were more likely to be confirmed when they were elicited using invitations (open-ended free-recall prompts) rather than focused prompts. However, similar effects were not evident with respect to contradictions. The results support predictions that information elicited using free-recall prompts is more likely to be accurate than information elicited using focused prompts.

OBJECTIVES: The present study was designed to explore structural differences between forensic interviews in which children made allegations and those in which children did not make allegations. METHODOLOGY: Fifty forensic interviews of 4- to 13-year-old suspected victims of abuse who did not disclose abuse during the interview were compared with the same number of forensic interviews of alleged victims who made allegations of sexual or physical abuse. Only cases in which there was substantial reason to believe that abuse had taken place were included in the study. Audiotapes of the interviews were examined with a focus on interviewer utterances and children's responses during the pre-substantive rapport-building, episodic memory training, and 'getting the allegation' phases of the interviews, which all employed the NICHD Investigative Interview Guide. FINDINGS: Forensic interviews which yielded allegations of child abuse were characterized by quite different dynamics than interviews with children who did not make allegations. When interviewing non-disclosers, interviewers made less frequent use of free recall prompts and offered fewer supportive comments than when interviewing children who made allegations of abuse. Children who did not disclose abuse were somewhat uncooperative, offered fewer details, and gave more uninformative responses, even at the very beginning of the interview, before the interviewers focused on substantive issues and before the interviewers themselves began to behave differently. CONCLUSIONS: A premature focus on substantive issues may prevent children who are not responsive in the episodic memory training phase from disclosing abuse. Identifying reluctant disclosers and making more extensive efforts to build rapport before substantive issues are broached, or interviewing such children in more than one session, may help suspected victims disclose their experiences. Language: en

OBJECTIVE: To introduce and evaluate a structured interview protocol designed for investigative interviews of youthful alleged perpetrators of child sexual abuse. METHOD: Seventy-two alleged perpetrators ranging from 9 to 14 years of age (M = 12 years) were interviewed by 1 of 13 experienced youth investigators, employed by the Israeli Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, about incidents that had been reported by alleged victims. All interviews were conducted as part of the investigators' regular work and followed the structured interview guide appended to this article. RESULTS: Interviewers questioned older and younger children similarly, but addressed fewer invitations, directive questions, and option-posing prompts to suspects who denied the allegations than to those who partially or fully admitted them. The total number of details provided by the suspects did not vary depending on their age or whether or not they fully or partially admitted the allegations. In both cases, more information was elicited using invitations rather than suggestive or option-posing prompts. CONCLUSION: Contrary to expectations, suspects who at least partially admitted their involvement provided considerable amounts of information and were very responsive to free recall prompts, although interviewers used more risky (potentially error-inducing) prompts when interviewing suspects rather than alleged victims. Language: en

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.

Purpose. The aim of the present study was to explore the nature and effectiveness of neutral and minimal facilitative prompts in forensic interviews with children, and the extent to which their effectiveness varies depending on their location relative to other prompts or on the stage of the interview.Method. Fifty forensic interviews with alleged victims of child sexual abuse, which closely followed the NICHD investigative protocol, were analysed. Each of the interviewer's utterances was classified into one of five categories (invitation, facilitator, directive, option-posing or suggestive) and the number of words and details provided in each of the child's responses were tabulated.Results. Facilitators proved to play an important role in forensic interviews, with children providing an average of five new substantive details following each facilitator. However, the effectiveness of facilitators varied depending upon their context. Facilitators in the first part of the substantive phase and facilitators following responses to open-ended invitations were most effective. Facilitators seem to function much like the previous eliciting utterance with respect to both the amount of information they elicit and the contents of reply.Conclusions. The findings suggest that facilitators are not necessarily open-ended in nature and are likely to function as option-posing or suggestive questions when they follow responses to such questions. Language: en

Forensic interviews with 142 alleged victims of sexual abuse, ranging from 4.0 to 13.5 years of age, were conducted under three different interviewing conditions: at the scene of the incidents (Physical Context Reinstatement; PCR group), in the investigator's office with mental context reinstating instructions (MCR group), and in the office without contextual cueing (Control group). Children in the PCR, MCR, and Control groups did not differ significantly with respect to the total number of informative details reported. Children in the MCR condition provided more detailed responses to the main invitation and in their first narrative than did children in the PCR condition, however. They also provided proportionally more detailed responses to open-ended invitations and fewer details in response to directive prompts than did children in the two other conditions. The MCR procedures were thus associated with greater improvements in the quality of information retrieval than were the PCR procedures. In all interviewing conditions, children aged 7 to 13 years provided significantly more details than 4- to-6-year-old children did. The youngest children provided fewer details in response to invitations and directive utterances, and proportionally more details in response to option-posing and suggestive utterances. No significant interactions between age and interviewing condition were apparent. Published in 2002 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Children's unwillingness to report abuse places them at risk for re-victimization, and interviewers who do not respond sensitively to that unwillingness may increase the likelihood that victims will not disclose abuse. Interviewer support and children's reluctance were examined on a turn-by-turn basis using sequential analyses in 199 forensic interviews of 3- to 13-year-olds who alleged maltreatment. Half of the children were interviewed using the Revised Protocol that emphasized rapport-building (RP), the others using the Standard National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Protocol (SP). When using the RP, interviewers provided proportionally more support than when using the SP, but even when using the RP they did not specifically provide support when children expressed reluctance. The RP promoted immediate cooperation when reluctant utterances were met with support, however, suggesting that supportive statements were valuable. The findings enhance our understanding of children's willingness to participate in investigative interviews and the means through which interviewers can foster the comfort and well-being of young witnesses.

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 children's 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

Forensic interviewers guided 46.4- to 13-year-old alleged victims of sexual abuse to recall the context in which the reported incidents had taken place. A comparable group of 50 alleged victims were interviewed using an interview protocol that was identical except that the mental context reinstatement (MCR) techniques were not included. MCR did not increase the total number of event-related details reported, but it did lead children to reported proportionally more details (55% versus 46%) in response to invitations rather than focused prompts. Such information is more likely to be accurate. MCR had an especially powerful effect on the youngest children (4- to 6-year-olds) studied. The results suggest that non-suggestive contextual cues may indeed be useful in forensic interviews. Published in 2001 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Language: en

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of a structured interview protocol (NICHD Investigative Interview Protocol) operationalizing universally recommended guidelines for forensic interviews. Method: The NICHD Investigative Protocol was designed to maximize the amount of information obtained using recall memory probes, which are likely to elicit more accurate information than recognition memory probes. Forensic investigators were trained to use the NICHD protocol while conducting feedback-monitored simulation interviews. The utility of the protocol was then evaluated by comparing 55 protocol interviews with 50 prior interviews by the same investigators, matched with respect to characertistics likely to affect the richness of the children’s accounts. The comparison was based on an analysis of the investigators’ utterance types, distribution, and timing, as well as quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the information produced. Results: As predicted, protocol interviews contained more open-ended prompts overall as well as before the first option-posing utterance than non-protocol interviews did. More details were obtained using open-ended invitations and fewer were obtained using focused questions in protocol interviews than in non-protocol interviews, although the total number of details elicited did not differ significantly. In both conditions, older children provided more details than younger children did. Conclusion: The findings confirmed that implementation of professionally recommended practices affected the behavior of interviewers in both the pre-substantive and substantive phases of their interviews and enhanced the quality (i.e., likely accuracy) of information elicited from alleged victims.

Purpose. This study was designed to determine whether environmental contextual cues, provided by visits to the scenes of alleged abuse, would facilitate the recall of information by alleged victims of child sexual abuse. Method. Participants were 96 4- to 13-year-olds who reported being victims of sexual abuse. Of the children, 50 were interviewedin the investigators' offices, and 46 were interviewed at the scene of the alleged abuse. Analyses focused on the effects of interview location, age, delay betweeen incident and interview, number of reported incidents, and familiarity with the scene on the number of details provided in office interviews and at the scene. Results. Children in thetwo groups did not differ with respect to the number of informative details reported. On average, children interviewed at the office reported 231.8 details, whereas children interviewed at the scene reported 234.7 details. In both interviewing conditions, older children (aged 7-9 and 10-13 years) provided significantly more details than younger children (aged 4-6 years). Children who experienced multiple incidents provided significantlymore details than children who reported experiencing single incidents. No significant interactions between environmental contextual cues, age, delay, scene familiarity and number of incidents were apparent. Conclusions. The present study is a pioneering attempt toexamine the value of physical context reinstatement in forensic settings. The results may also guide future research on contextual cueing in forensic settings. Language: en

Interviews of 12 children describing sexual abuse incidents that were deemed unlikely to have happened were matched with 12 interviews involving descriptions of events that appeared likely to have happened. Each interviewer utterance and each child response was categorized into several types. For each of the child's responses, coders also tabulated the number of words, informative details, and Criterion-Based Content Analysis (CBCA) criteria present. The distribution of the different interviewer's utterance types and child's response types was similar in the 2 groups, as was the number of words and details provided in the average response by the child. However, differences were evident in the children's responses to the specific types of interviewer utterance. The children provided more words, details, and contents that qualified as CBCA criteria in response to open-ended utterances than to focused utterances in plausible statements, but those effects were not apparent in implausible statements.

In investigative interviews concerned with allegations of sexual abuse, open-ended prompts by interviewers elicit more information than focused prompts. We attempted to explore these effects in investigations of physical abuse. Interviews with 50 children from 2 age groups (5–6-year-olds, 9–10-year-olds) who made subsequently substantiated allegations of physical abuse by their parents were subjected to detailed psycholinguistic analysis. The overall productivity (number of words spoken) and informativeness (number of details elicited) of these children were remarkably low. The children were also relatively unresponsive to the investigators' individual utterances, and many of the interviewers' utterances were nonsubstantive (15%). The interviewers were more likely than those included in studies of sexual abuse investigations to use open-ended as opposed to focused prompts. These open-ended utterances elicited significantly more words but not more details than focused prompts. Older children also provided ...

Purpose. The study was designed to determine whether the contextual cues provided by visits to the scene of alleged incidents would facilitate the recall of information by alleged victims of child sexual abuse. Methods. Fifty-one 4- to 13-year-old children who had reported being victims of sexual abuse were interviewed in an investigator's office and then at the scene of the alleged abuse. Analyses focused on the effects of age, number of reported incidents, familiarity of the scene, familiarity of the alleged perpetrator and delay between incident and interview on the number of details provided in the office interview and at the scene. Results. On average, the children reported 304.1 details, with 23 per cent of these provided at the scene. Contrary to prediction, contextual cues were not more effective for younger children, when the scene or alleged perpetrator were unfamiliar, or when the delay between alleged incident and interview was longer. Conclusions. Physical context reinstatement did appear to elicit additional details from alleged victims and facilitated the investigators' efforts to visualize and understand the alleged events. Many specific predictions about the role of contextual cues were not supported by the data, however.

Objectives. The goal of the study was to determine whether the criterion-based content analysis (CBCA) indicators of credibility were more likely to be elicited by open-ended interview prompts than by more directive prompts. Methods. Coders independently applied a revised CBCA coding scheme while others rated interviewer utterance types and the length and richness of children's responses in transcripts of 20 forensic interviews of alleged victims of child sexual abuse. Results. There were high correlations between the number of CBCA criteria identified and both the length and richness of the children's utterances. Open-ended invitations were especially useful in eliciting responses that contained CBCA criteria, as expected. Conclusions. Open-ended invitations thus appear to elicit both more numerous details and details that are believed to suggest credibility. Implications for the application of CBCA codes to credibility assessment are discussed.

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 children's 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.

Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) is one widely cited risk factor for Sexually Intrusive Behavior (SIB) among boys. To identify variables that moderate the early onset of SIB in a sample of boys, alleged victims of sexual abuse, the current study involved a prospective examination of all investigations of male CSA victims and those of boys aged under 14 who were suspected of committing SIBs on other children in Israel over a 10-year period. Comparing victims with and without SIB records revealed differences on personal and family factors as well as on the characteristics of abuse. A regression model controlling for age and family factors correctly classified over three quarters of the subjects based on reported experiences of abuse. The data help identify characteristics of the abuse that facilitate the early onset of SIB among male victims of CSA.

This field study is concerned with the effect of interviewing style on children's 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.

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.

This article describes how allegations of child sexual abuse are investigated and adjudicated in Israel. Believing that children may well be harmed by repeated interrogation and demands to testify and be cross-examined, Israeli legislators enacted special provisions several decades ago to ensure that children were spared these traumas. Recent evaluations of the system they established suggest that the protections concerned may have led inadvertently to various practices, including the failure to prosecute, that have not served children well. Possible remedies and a research program related to these issues are described.