Developmental differences in children's learning and use of forensic ground rules during an interview about an experienced event.

Children often answer questions when they do not have the requisite knowledge or when they do not understand them. We examined whether 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 event and whether doing so was associated with more accurate accounts. We compared children with intellectual disabilities (mild or moderate severity, = 44, 7-12 years) with 3 groups of typically developing children (2 matched for mental age, and 1 for chronological age, = 55, 4-12 years) on their understanding of 3 ground rules, their use of these rules in an interview, and their accuracy in recalling a personally experienced event.

Narrative skill and testimonial accuracy in typically developing children and those with intellectual disabilities.

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 event and compared coherence in CWID (mild to moderate impairment: 7-11 years) with TD children matched for mental (4-10 years) or chronological age (7-11 years).

A Tailored Family-Based Obesity Intervention: A Randomized Trial.

Objective: To determine whether a 2-year family-based intervention using frequent contact and limited expert involvement was effective in reducing excessive weight compared with usual care.

Methods: Two hundred and six overweight and obese (BMI ≥85th percentile) children aged 4 to 8 years were randomized to usual care (UC) or tailored package (TP) sessions at university research rooms. UC families received personalized feedback and generalized advice regarding healthy lifestyles at baseline and 6 months.

Preserving the Past: An Early Interview Improves Delayed Event Memory in Children With Intellectual Disabilities.

The influence of an early interview on children's (N = 194) later recall of an experienced event was examined in children with mild and moderate intellectual disabilities (CWID; 7-12 years) and typically developing (TD) children matched for chronological (7-12 years) or mental (4-9 years) age. Children previously interviewed were more informative, more accurate, and less suggestible. CWID (mild) recalled as much information as TD mental age matches, and were as accurate as TD chronological age matches.

Parental motivation to change body weight in young overweight children.

Objective: To determine what factors are associated with parental motivation to change body weight in overweight children.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Setting: Dunedin, New Zealand.

Do parents recall and understand children's weight status information after BMI screening? A randomised controlled trial.

Objectives: As parents of young children are often unaware their child is overweight, screening provides the opportunity to inform parents and provide the impetus for behaviour change. We aimed to determine if parents could recall and understand the information they received about their overweight child after weight screening.

Design: Randomised controlled trial of different methods of feedback.

Using motivational interviewing for weight feedback to parents of young children.

Aim: To determine whether a single session of motivational interviewing (MI) for feedback of a child's overweight status promotes engagement in treatment following screening.

Methods: One thousand ninety-three children aged 4-8 years were recruited through primary and secondary care to attend health screening, including assessment of parenting practices and motivation (questionnaire). Families with normal-weight children were informed about their child's weight but had no further involvement.

The NICHD investigative interview protocol: an analogue study.

One hundred twenty-eight 5- to 7-year-old children were interviewed using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Investigative Interview Protocol about an event staged 4 to 6 weeks earlier. Children were prepared for talking about the investigated event using either an invitational or directive style of prompting, with or without additional practice describing experienced events. The open invitation prompts (including those using children's words to encourage further reporting) elicited more detailed responses than the more focused directive prompts without reducing accuracy.

The influences of delay and severity of intellectual disability on event memory in children.

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 in either the mild-borderline range (n = 46) or the moderate range (n = 35) and typically developing children matched for either chronological age (7-12 years; n = 60) or mental age (4-9 years; n = 65) with respect to memories of an interactive event about which they were interviewed after either a short (1-week) or long (6-month) delay. Children were interviewed using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Investigative Interview Protocol (Lamb, Hershkowitz, Orbach, & Esplin, 2008) to elicit their recall of the event and were then asked a series of highly suggestive questions to allow both their reliability and suggestibility to be examined.

Supportive or suggestive: Do human figure drawings help 5- to 7-year-old children to report touch?

The authors examined the accuracy of information elicited from seventy-nine 5- to 7-year-old children about a staged event that included physical contact-touching. Four to six weeks later, children's recall for the event was assessed using an interview protocol analogous to those used in forensic investigations with children. Following the verbal interview, children were asked about touch when provided with human figure drawings (drawings only), following practice using the human figure drawings (drawings with instruction), or without drawings (verbal questions only).