Sexual abuse and preschoolers: Forensic details in regard of question types

Using an AI-based avatar for interviewer training at Children's Advocacy Centers: Proof of Concept

This proof-of- concept study focused on interviewers' behaviors and perceptions when interacting with a dynamic AI child avatar alleging abuse. Professionals (N = 68) took part in a virtual reality (VR) study in which they questioned an avatar presented as a child victim of sexual or physical abuse. Of interest was how interviewers questioned the avatar, how productive the child avatar was in response, and how interviewers perceived the VR interaction. Findings suggested alignment between interviewers' virtual questioning approaches and interviewers' typical questioning behavior in real-world investigative interviews, with a diverse range of questions used to elicit disclosures from the child avatar. The avatar responded to most question types as children typically do, though more nuanced programming of the avatar's productivity in response to complex question types is needed. Participants rated the avatar positively and felt comfortable with the VR experience. Results underscored the potential of AI-based interview training as a scalable, standardized alternative to traditional methods.

Open-ended initial invitations are particularly helpful in eliciting forensically relevant information from child witnesses

BACKGROUND

Open-ended prompting is an essential tool for interviewers to elicit evidentiary information from children reporting abuse. To date, no research has examined whether different types of open-ended prompts elicit details with differing levels of forensic relevance.

OBJECTIVE

To examine interviewers' use of three open-ended prompt subtypes (initial invitations, breadth prompts, and depth prompts) and compare the forensic relevance of the information elicited by each.

PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING

Transcripts of field interviews conducted by 53 police interviewers with children aged 6- to 16-years alleging abuse were examined.

METHODS

In each transcript, initial invitations, breadth prompts, and depth prompts were identified, and the child's response was parsed into clauses. Clauses were classified according to their forensic relevance: essential to the charge (i.e., a key point of proof or element of the offence), relevant to the offending (i.e., what occurred before, during, or after an incident but not an essential detail), context (i.e., background information), irrelevant to the charge, no information provided, or repeated information already provided earlier.

RESULTS

Interviewers posed fewer initial invitations than breadth and depth prompts, p < .001, ηp2 = 0.58. Initial invitations elicited higher proportions of essential and relevant clauses than breadth and depth prompts; depth prompts further elicited higher proportions of essential clauses than breadth prompts, ps ≤ 0.001. We found few effects of children's age.

CONCLUSIONS

Initial invitations are a particularly useful subtype of open-ended prompt for interviewers to elicit details that are legislatively essential for prosecution of crimes from children of all ages.

Taking Oral Evidence in Chile from Child Victims in Priority Groups: Challenges for the Practice and Training of Justice Professionals

In Chile, Law 21.057 established in 2019 that, for criminal cases in which there is a child or adolescent victim of a sexual or other serious crime, professionals who take the evidence from the victim during the investigative interview and court testimony are required to be specially trained as interviewers and intermediaries, respectively. Although Chile has been progressively moving into a child-friendly justice system, the expertise and training on how to address victims who have particular communicative, emotional, cultural, or social needs have been rather limited. This study explores the challenges experienced by investigative interviewers and intermediaries with child victims from priority groups, through the lens of their instructors. The term "priority groups" encompasses people who require special protection because of a condition that puts them at a disadvantage. Using purposive sampling, 12 of the most experienced instructors were recruited, and five semi-structured group interviews were conducted remotely. Through thematic data analysis, eight categories of challenges were found. First, the study identified particular difficulties experienced by professionals with six groups of children and adolescents who are here called priority victims or members of priority groups: (1.1) preschool children, (1.2) victims with neurodevelopmental disorders, (1.3) victims with psychiatric disorders, (1.4) reluctant victims, (1.5) Indigenous and migrant victims, and (1.6) victims in complex contexts/crimes. Secondly, the analysis identified cross-cutting challenges for the professionals related to (2.1) difficulties remaining after their initial training, and (2.2) the unavailability of background information about the victims before the proceedings. The article emphasizes the need to strengthen advanced competences and training content regarding priority groups, to reinforce initial skills, and to refine guidelines to assess and address these victims adequately, in order to facilitate their access to justice.

The ability of adults with limited expressive language to engage in open-ended interviews about personal experiences

This study examines how adults with limited expressive language (with average sentences of five words or less) respond to open-ended questions. Participants (n = 49) completed a baseline measure and were then interviewed about a personal experience using exclusively open-ended questions, followed by open-ended and directive questions about a staged event. Their interviews were coded for mean length of utterance (MLU), number of different words and six dimensions of the Narrative Assessment Profile. Descriptively, the participants were able to give some event-related detail in their narratives, but there was wide variability in narrative quality. Correlational and regression analyses indicate that their MLU was stable across contexts. The findings suggest that adults with limited expressive language can provide informative responses to open-ended questions about their experiences, and that their expressive language is likely to show stability across introductory and substantive interview phases.

Meta-analysis of the effects of two interviewing practices on children's disclosures of sensitive information: Rapport practices and question type

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE

The forensic interview is an important part of the investigative process with child witnesses, and ensuring evidence-based practices is crucial to its success. This meta-analysis examined the overall effect of rapport practices and question type on children's disclosures during forensic interviews to determine (a) how large of an influence existing practices have on children's tendency to disclose information, and (b) how consistent the effect sizes of interviewing practices are across studies, given that inconsistent results have been found.

METHOD

A systematic review of child interviewing practices was conducted, and 35 studies met the inclusion criteria. Articles were categorized thematically according to interviewing practice. Two practices were predominantly represented in the literature and were selected for review and meta-analysis: rapport techniques, including interviewer support, (n = 9), and question type (n = 25 samples, 23 studies). Random-effects meta-analytic models were computed separately for rapport practices and question type, and moderator analyses were conducted to test for differences according to age and interviewing protocol.

RESULTS

Rapport techniques had a medium overall effect on children's disclosures (d = 0.55, p < .001), and was moderated by the interviewing protocol used, but not children's age. Open-ended questions compared to closed-ended questions had a medium overall effect on children's descriptions of sensitive events (d = 0.52, p < .001), and was not moderated by age or interviewing protocol.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings provide overarching support for the use of rapport and support, and the use of open-ended questions in forensic interviews with child witnesses.

Applying Hierarchy of Expert Performance (HEP) to investigative interview evaluation: strengths, challenges and future directions

The purpose of this paper is to systematically examine the research literature on the decision of expert interviewers within the theoretical framework of the Hierarchy of Expert Performance (HEP). After providing an overview of the HEP framework, existing research in the investigative interviewing at each of the eight levels of the HEP framework is reviewed. The results identify areas of strength in reliability between experts' observations (Level 2) and of weakness in reliability between experts' conclusions (Level 6). Biases in investigative interview experts' decision making is also revealed at biasability between expert conclusions (Level 8). Moreover, no published data are available in reliability within experts at the level of observations (Level 1) or conclusions (Level 5), biasability within or between expert observations (Level 3 and 4) and biasability within expert conclusions (Level 7). The findings highlight areas where future research and practical endeavour are much needed for the investigative interview.

Young Children's Activity Involvement and Responses to Yes/No Questions

In the present study, we investigated younger and older Persian preschoolers' response tendency and accuracy toward yes/no questions about a coloring activity. Overall, 107 three- to four-year-olds and five- to six-year-old children were asked positive and negative yes/no questions about a picture coloring activity. The questions focused on three question contents namely, actions, environment and person. As for children's response tendency, they showed a compliance tendency. That is, they provided yes and no responses to positively and negatively formed questions respectively. Children especially younger ones were more compliant toward positive questions and their tendency decreased by age. In addition, the results revealed children's highest rate of compliance tendency toward environment inquiries. Concerning response accuracy, the effects of age and question content were significant. Specifically, older children provided more accurate responses than their younger counterparts, especially to yes/no questions asked about the actions performed during the activity. The findings suggest that depending on the format and the content of yes/no questions younger and older children's response accuracy and tendency differ.

Encouraging more open-ended recall in child interviews

The goal of child forensic interviewers is to obtain as much information as possible through open-ended recall. Unfortunately, typically interviewers quickly switch to focused questions. This article suggests a way of eliciting more open-ended recall by using the narrative elaboration (NE) procedure, which includes four initial prompts about event participants, context, actions, conversations, and thoughts. The procedure uses line drawings on cards as prompts and requires pre-training; although it substantially increases open-ended recall, in practice it is too time-consuming for regular use. The original NE procedure is compared with two streamlined versions with 3- to 7-year-olds: using NE cards with no pre-training and simply providing parallel NE verbal prompts without using the cards. The children in the streamlined NE interview with verbal prompts were found to provide as much additional information as those in the full NE interview, and considerably more than those in the control interview. Therefore, incorporating NE verbal prompts near the beginning of child interviews is an easy way to increase the amount of information that children provide in open-ended recall.

Suggestibility in neglected children: The influence of intelligence, language, and social skills

We administered the GSS-2, a standardised measure of suggestibility, to 5- to 12-year-old children to ascertain whether neglected children's responses to leading questions distinguish them from those of their non-neglected counterparts. Neglected children (n = 75) were more likely than an age-matched sample of non-neglected children (n = 75) to yield to leading questions, despite no difference in their ability to recall the test stimuli. Subsequent collection of individual difference data from the neglected sample revealed that this effect could not be attributed to intelligence, language ability, problem behaviours, age at onset of neglect, or time spent in out-of-home care. With respect to social skill, however, suggestibility was positively correlated with communicative skill, and marginally positively correlated with assertion and engagement. While on the surface our social skills findings seem counter-intuitive, it is possible that maltreated children with relative strengths in these areas have learned to comply with adults in their environment as a way to protect themselves or even foster belonging. Our data, while preliminary, raise interesting questions about whether targeted interventions could help these children to more actively participate in decisions about their lives.