Citation

Fessinger MB, McWilliams K, Bakth FN, Lyon TD. Child Maltreat. 2020; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Gould School of Law, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1077559520910783

PMID

32208866

Abstract

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. We also examined whether children accurately responded to practice questions. We coded transcripts from 241 forensic interviews of 4- to 12-year-old children conducted by interviewers in the United States who were largely trained using the Ten Step Investigative Interview.

RESULTS demonstrated that interviewers routinely presented and practiced the ground rules, but this significantly varied by children's age. Additionally, children often accurately responded to practice questions, but younger children were less accurate than older children. Taken together, results highlight that interviewers may deviate from ground rules recommendations based on the characteristics of the child, which has implications for both future research and practice.

Language: en

Keywords

child maltreatment; interview techniques; interviewing children