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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.

In the Netherlands, there is currently no quality standard for conducting child forensic interviews in Child Protective Services (CPS) . The lack of such standard causes concern regarding the quality of these interviews, which are used to determine the child's safety and implementing treatment. In the current study, we implemented the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) protocol at Safe Home, the Dutch national reporting agency for child abuse and domestic violence. Professionals at Safe Home received a three-day training in the NICHD protocol with regular follow-up feedback sessions. We compared 38 NICHD interviews with 30 control interviews on variables such as the type of questions asked, number of reported words, and children's mood state. NICHD interviews contained more invitations and fewer suggestive questions compared to non-standardized interviews. Furthermore, children reported more information related to the reported incident when they were interviewed with the NICHD protocol compared to control interviews. After being interviewed, children reported a more positive mood state independent of how they were interviewed (NICHD or control interview). Finally, children interviewed with the NICHD protocol were less likely to succumb to suggestive probes provided after the interview than children in the control group. We argue that child protection professionals need training in an evidence-based interview protocol to improve fact-finding in CPS.

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.