Attorneys' Questions About Time in Criminal Cases of Alleged Child Sexual Abuse.

In cases of alleged child sexual abuse, information about the timing of events is often needed. However, published developmental laboratory research has demonstrated that children struggle to provide accurate and reliable testimony about time and there is currently a lack of field research examining how attorneys actually question child witnesses about time in court. The current study analyzed 130 trial transcripts from cases of alleged child sexual abuse containing a child witness between the ages of 5-17 years old to determine the frequency, style, and content of attorneys' questions and child responses about time.

The Role of Wait Time During the Questioning of Children: A Systematic Review.

The benefits of wait time in classroom discourses have been well documented in the field of education since the 1970s. While current forensic interview guidelines recognize the importance of pauses, whether there is sufficient empirical evidence to inform wait time guidelines in the legal context remains unanswered. This systematic review aimed to synthesize and provide a holistic update on the available research on the role of wait time when questioning children and recommended future direction to develop wait time guidelines specific to child forensic interviews.

"Just to Jog My Memory": An Examination of Forensic Interviewers' Note-taking Behaviors and Perceptions of Notes With Child Witnesses.

In the current study, we surveyed forensic interviewers ( = 137) on their note-taking practices, perceptions of note-taking, and note-taking training. Many forensic interviewers surveyed (81%) reported that they take notes during forensic interviews. Of those, the most common reason for note-taking was to assist with remembering what the interviewee reported during the interview (89%) and to guide the formulation of follow-up questions (87%).

Attorneys' experiences, perceptions, and plea recommendations in child sexual abuse cases.

Objective: We examined attorneys' experiences, perceptions, and decisions regarding plea recommendations in child sexual cases.

Hypotheses: We hypothesized that characteristics of the child (age, relationship to alleged perpetrator) and the report (timing of disclosure, consistency across reports) would affect attorneys' perceptions of evidence strength, likelihood of conviction, and plea recommendations.

Method: We collected data from a national sample of actively practicing prosecutors (n = 217) and defense attorneys (n = 251) who had experience with child abuse cases.

An examination of questioning methods and the influence of child maltreatment on paediatric pain assessments: Perspectives of healthcare providers.

Aims And Objectives: Children with a history of maltreatment have underestimated and undertreated pain; however, it is unknown if healthcare providers consider maltreatment when assessing children's pain. The current study aimed to address this issue by investigating healthcare providers' pain assessment practices, and specifically, their consideration of child maltreatment.

Method: Healthcare providers (N = 100) completed a survey, asking them to reflect upon their pediatric pain assessment practices (e.

Child maltreatment and pediatric pain: A survey of healthcare professionals' pain knowledge and pain management techniques.

Children who have been maltreated are at an increased risk of having their pain under-recognized and undertreated by healthcare professionals, and thus, are more susceptible to adverse outcomes associated with undertreated pain. This study's aims were to examine: () if healthcare professionals' pediatric pain knowledge is associated with their pain assessment methods, () if maltreatment-specific pain knowledge is associated with consideration of child maltreatment when deciding on a pain management strategy, and () if pediatric pain knowledge would relate to maltreatment-specific pain knowledge. A sample ( = 108) of healthcare professionals responded to a survey designed to examine their current knowledge and utilization of pediatric pain assessment and management with emphasis on the effects of child maltreatment.

Waiving goodbye to youth: Jurors perceive transferred juveniles differently from adults but render similar verdicts.

Juveniles are developmentally different from adults but are often treated similarly in the criminal justice system. In case processing, many juveniles are transferred to adult courts. Before case processing, many juveniles are interrogated with the same tactics used against adults.

Children's acquiescence to polysemous implicature questions about coaching: The role of parental support.

Children may be asked questions with subtle and implied meanings. The present study examined whether, and under what conditions, 5- to 10-year-old children affirmed polysemous implicature questions that implied coaching, when in fact no coaching occurred. Participants ( = 161) were presented with vignettes about a transgression where the child disclosed to a supportive or unsupportive parent, and were asked three polysemous implicature coaching questions (e.

Young children's understanding of the epistemic and deontic meanings of ask and tell.

The verbs ask and tell can be used both epistemically, referring to the flow of information, and deontically, referring to obligations through polite requests or commands. Some researchers suggest that children's understanding of deontic modals emerges earlier than their understanding of epistemic modals, possibly because theory of mind is required to understand epistemic modals. In the current study, 184 children aged 3-6 years were presented with vignettes depicting epistemic and deontic asking and telling and were asked whether the speaker asked or told, followed by first-order theory-of-mind tasks.

Pseudotemporal Invitations: 6- to 9-year-Old Maltreated Children's Tendency to Misinterpret Invitations Referencing "Time" as Solely Requesting Conventional Temporal Information.

Forensic interviewers ask children broad input-free recall questions about individual episodes in order to elicit complete narratives, often asking about "the first time," "the last time," and "one time." An overlooked problem is that the word "time" is potentially ambiguous, referring both to a particular episode and to conventional temporal information. We examined 191 6-9-year-old maltreated children's responses to questions about recent events varying the wording of the invitations, either asking children to "tell me about" or "tell me what happened" one time/the first time/the last time the child experienced recent recurrent events.

Parents' attachment orientation, interviewers' support, and children's memory for a mildly distressing event.

Parents' attachment orientations predict children's memory about distressing life events, such that parents who are less secure in close relationships tend to have children who are less accurate in their memory reports. This study examined whether socially supportive interviewing would reduce differences in children's memory performance associated with parents' attachment. Children (3 to 5 years,  = 63) and their primary caretakers took part in the Preschool Attachment Classification System (PACS), a moderately distressing event for children of preschool age that is based on the Strange Situation Procedure.

Did Your Mom Help You Remember?: An Examination of Attorneys' Subtle Questioning About Suggestive Influence to Children Testifying About Child Sexual Abuse.

Researchers studying children's reports of sexual abuse have focused on how questioners overtly assess coaching and truthfulness (e.g., ).

Don't know responding in young maltreated children: The effects of wh- questions type and enhanced interview instructions.

Objective: Two studies examined 4-7-year-old maltreated children's "I don't know" (IDK) responses to wh- questions after receiving various interview instructions.

Hypotheses: We predicted (H1) children would be less inclined to give IDK responses and more inclined to guess to color/number questions compared to other wh- questions; (H2) IDK instructions would increase children's IDK responding compared to no instructions, with an increase in accuracy; but (H3) instructions would be less effective in reducing guessing for color/number questions than other wh- questions. In Study 1, we predicted that (H4) verbalizing a commitment to answer IDK would be particularly effective.

Order of Encoding Predicts Young Children's Responses to Sequencing Questions.

We propose that young children exhibit an bias, such that they are inclined to report or act out events in the order in which they were originally encoded. This bias helps to explain why children assume that events they first hear described are in chronological order and why they often appear to understand "after" better than "before" when they are questioned about experienced events. Asking children about a sequence of events as a whole (in particular using "first") could avoid order of encoding biases, because children would not have to answer questions about events within the sequence.

Young Children's Ability to Describe Intermediate Clothing Placement.

Children's ability to adequately describe clothing placement is essential to evaluating their allegations of sexual abuse. Intermediate clothing placement (partially removed clothing) may be difficult for young children to describe, requiring more detailed explanations to indicate the location of clothing (e.g.

Setting the Ground Rules: Use and Practice of Ground Rules in Child Forensic Interviews.

Most child forensic interviewing protocols recommend that interviewers administer a series of ground rules to emphasize concepts that are important to accurately answering interview questions. Limited research has examined whether interviewers follow ground rules recommendations in real-world forensic interviews. In this study, we examined how often highly trained interviewers presented and practiced each of the recommended ground rules.

Children's concealment of a minor transgression: The role of age, maltreatment, and executive functioning.

This study examined the role of age, maltreatment status, and executive functioning on 752 4- to 9-year-old maltreated and nonmaltreated children's recall disclosure of a transgression in which the children appeared to have broken toys while playing with a stranger. Interviewers used narrative practice rapport building and then questioned children with free recall and cued recall questions. Younger and maltreated children were more likely to disclose during rapport building, whereas older and nonmaltreated children were more likely to disclose in response to recall questions.

Increasing maltreated and nonmaltreated children's recall disclosures of a minor transgression: The effects of back-channel utterances, a promise to tell the truth, and a post-recall putative confession.

Background: Children are often hesitant to disclose transgressions, particularly when they feel implicated, and frequently remain reluctant until confronted with direct questions. Given the risks associated with direct questions, an important issue is how interviewers can encourage honesty through recall questions.

Objective: The present study examined the use of three truth induction strategies for increasing the accuracy and productivity of children's reports about a transgression.

The utility of direct questions in eliciting subjective content from children disclosing sexual abuse.

Background: Children alleging sexual abuse rarely exhibit emotion when disclosing, but they may be able to describe their subjective reactions to abuse if asked.

Objective: This study examined the extent to which different types of questions in child sexual abuse interviews elicited subjective content, namely emotional reactions, cognitive content, and physical sensations.

Participants And Setting: The study included transcripts of 205 Child Advocacy Center interviews with 4- to 12-year-old children alleging sexual abuse.

Children's Conversational Memory Regarding a Minor Transgression and a Subsequent Interview.

Children's memories for their conversations are commonly explored in child abuse cases. In two studies, we examined conversational recall in 154 4- to 9-year-old children's reports of an interaction with a stranger, some of whom were complicit in a transgression and were admonished to keep it a secret. Immediately afterwards, all children were interviewed about their interaction.

How children remember the Strange Situation: The role of attachment.

This study tested predictions from Bowlby's attachment theory about children's memory and suggestibility. Young children (3-5years old, N=88; 76% Caucasians) and their parents took part in the Strange Situation Procedure, a moderately distressing event and "gold standard" for assessing children's attachment quality. The children were then interviewed about what occurred during the event.

Ask versus tell: Potential confusion when child witnesses are questioned about conversations.

Children's potential confusion between "ask" and "tell" can lead to misunderstandings when child witnesses are asked to report prior conversations. The verbs distinguish both between interrogating and informing, and between requesting and commanding. Children's understanding was examined using both field (Study 1) and laboratory methods (Studies 2-4).

Wrongful Acquittals of Sexual Abuse.

Ross Cheit's book The Witch-Hunt Narrative highlights the difficulties of prosecuting child sexual abuse. Drawing examples from a single case, Alex A., we examine the ways in which false acquittals of sexual abuse are likely to occur.

The Effects of Secret Instructions and Yes/no Questions on Maltreated and Non-maltreated Children's Reports of a Minor Transgression.

This study examined the effects of secret instructions (distinguishing between good/bad secrets and encouraging disclosure of bad secrets) and yes/no questions (DID: "Did the toy break?" versus DYR: "Do you remember if the toy broke?") on 262 maltreated and non-maltreated children's (age range 4-9 years) reports of a minor transgression. Over two-thirds of children failed to disclose the transgression in response to free recall (invitations and cued invitations). The secret instruction increased disclosures early in free recall, but was not superior to no instruction when combined with cued invitations.