A structured forensic interview protocol improves the quality and informativeness of investigative interviews with children: a review of research using the NICHD Investigative Interview Protocol.

Objective: To show how the results of research on children's memory, communicative skills, social knowledge, and social tendencies can be translated into guidelines that improve the quality of forensic interviews of children.

Method: We review studies designed to evaluate children's capacities as witnesses, explain the development of the structured NICHD Investigative Interview Protocol, and discuss studies designed to assess whether use of the Protocol enhances the quality of investigative interviews.

Results: Controlled studies have repeatedly shown that the quality of interviewing reliably and dramatically improves when interviewers employ the NICHD Protocol.

Using a human figure drawing to elicit information from alleged victims of child sexual abuse.

Ninety 4- to 13-year-old alleged victims of sexual abuse were interviewed by police officers using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) investigative interview protocol, following which they were shown a human figure drawing and asked a series of questions. The drawing and associated questions elicited an average of 86 new forensically relevant details. They were especially productive with 4- to 7-year-olds, who provided an average of 95 additional details (27% of their total) after the drawing was introduced despite having previously "exhausted" their memories.

Age differences in young children's responses to open-ended invitations in the course of forensic interviews.

To elucidate age differences in responses to free-recall prompts (i.e., invitations and cued invitations) and focused recognition prompts (i.