Child Sexual Abuse Interview : Child Witnesses

by Child Welfare Information Gateway

(Page 7 of 8)

Research on the Reliability and Suggestibility of Child Witnesses

Along with other challenges to allegations of sexual abuse have come challenges to the credibility of children as witnesses. Questions regarding the accuracy of their memories and their suggestibility have been raised.

Fortunately for professionals concerned about the sexual abuse of children, these questions have been addressed through a series of experiments that simulate some of the circumstances of sexual abuse. In general, these studies indicate that children can remember and that they are resistant to suggestion.

Children's Memories

Older children have more complete recall than younger children. However, studies indicate children as young as 3 years old can recall experiences comparable to those found in sexual abuse. Young children remember fewer details and recall central rather than peripheral events when compared to older children. Moreover, although children may not volunteer information about concerning events (a genital exam) or traumatic events (an inoculation or having blood drawn), similar in some respects to sexual victimization, such events are recalled as well by children as adults. Children's ability to provide accurate accounts appears to be facilitated by the availability of "props," such as anatomically explicit dolls, regular dolls, and anatomical drawings. As noted in the discussion of appropriate questions, children may require fairly direct questions in order to provide information. Children's memories will fade over time, but their recall can be enhanced by periodic recall of the events in question.

Children's Suggestibility

The research indicates that most children are resistant to giving false positive responses to leading and suggestive questions. When they do provide false positives, they are generally limited to a nod or a simple "yes." Older children are more resistant to suggestion than younger ones. Children are much more likely to deny actual experiences, which are perceived as traumatic or unacceptable, than to make false assertions about events that did not occur.

However, one study found that children are suggestible, not with regard to factual data but as to the interpretation of the facts. In a study involving 75 children, Clarke-Stewart had a cleaning man interact with toys. In one condition, the man described his activities as cleaning and in the other as playing. The children were then interrogated by an interviewer who pressured the child to interpret the man's behavior as either cleaning or playing. The researchers found that children did not change their statements regarding what had actually taken place, but most children were highly influenced by the interviewer's interpretation of the cleaning man's acts (cleaning versus playing). The implications of this study are clear. They reiterate the importance of using open-ended questions as much as possible and caution professionals to be careful about interpreting behavior, especially child care behaviors.

Criteria To Be Used To Substantiate Sexual Abuse

Once data have been gathered from the child interview and other sources, the interviewer must decide whether, in her/his opinion, the child was sexually abused. A number of writers have addressed this issue. All of these authors are of the opinion that substantiating information must go beyond affirmative responses to one or two questions, and most suggest some combination of descriptive detail and emotional reaction to the content. Indeed, there is a fair amount of consensus among these writings about the characteristics of a true account of abuse.

However, there has been very little research on the extent to which these clinical criteria are actually present in true cases, in large part because it is so difficult to isolate cases that are proven to be true. The criteria developed by Faller will be presented here because there is one research study that examines the extent to which they are found in cases substantiated by offender confession, because they are parsimoniously organized, and because they are fairly consistent with the criteria developed by other writers.

There are three general categories of information that should be assessed in the child's statements and/or behavior:

• a description (either verbal or behavioral) of the sexual behavior;
• information about the context of the sexual abuse; and
• an emotional reaction consistent with the behavior being described, the child's functioning, and the circumstances of the interview.

A Description of the Sexual Abuse

In assessing the child's description of the sexual activity, the interviewer is looking for:

• sexual knowledge beyond that expected for the child's developmental stage;
• an account consistent with a child's perspective; and
• an explicit description of the sexual acts.

Advanced sexual knowledge and a child's perspective are, of course, more persuasive findings with younger children. An explicit account is relevant for children of all ages.

Information About the Context of the Sexual Abuse

Information about the context of the sexual abuse might include:

• where it happened;
• when it happened;
• where other people in the family were;
• what the offender might have said to involve the child;
• what the victim and offender were wearing and what clothing was removed;
• the frequency and/or duration of the abuse;
• whether the offender said anything about telling or not telling;
• whether the child told; and
• if so, whom did the child tell and that person's response.

The child may have been sexually abused many times and, therefore, may not remember details about all instances. It is best to ask the child to tell about the last time in order to obtain contextual information. In the research on these criteria, the child was considered to have provided sufficient contextual material if she/he gave three pieces of contextual information.

Preschool children will probably have a hard time focusing on and describing the most recent incident. In addition, they will not have the ability to abstract and say, for example, "Sometimes it happened in the bathroom, at other times in the basement, and once at my grandmother's house." As a consequence, their accounts of the context (and the abuse, itself) may be confusing and apparently inconsistent. What may be happening is the child may be recalling different incidents when being questioned at different times or by different people. These problems may occur when preschool children are interviewed by different people and/or at different times, or when they recount two or more different incidents, or parts of them, in the same interview.

About the Author

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