Individual Differences in Children's Suggestibility: An Updated Review

Using rapport building to improve information yield when interviewing adolescents: A systematic review and call for research

BACKGROUND

Adolescents frequently experience and witness violence and crime, yet very little research has been conducted to determine how best to question these witnesses to elicit complete and accurate disclosures.

OBJECTIVE

This systematic review integrated scientific research on rapport building with child and adult witnesses with theory and research on adolescent development in order to identify rapport building techniques likely to be effective with suspected adolescent victims and witnesses.

METHOD

Four databases were searched to identify investigations of rapport building in forensic interviewing of adolescents.

RESULTS

Despite decades of research of studies including child and adult participants, only one study since 1990 experimentally tested techniques to build rapport with adolescents. Most rapport strategies used with children and adults have yet to be tested with adolescents. Tests of these strategies, along with modifications based on developmental science of adolescence, would provide a roadmap to determining which approaches are most beneficial when questioning adolescent victims and witnesses.

CONCLUSIONS

There is a clear need for research that tests what strategies are best to use with adolescents. They may be reluctant to disclose information about stressful or traumatic experiences to adults due to both normative developmental processes and the types of events about which they are questioned in legal settings. Rapport building approaches tailored to address adolescents' motivational needs may be effective in increasing adolescents' reporting, and additional research testing such approaches will provide much-needed insight to inform the development of evidence-based practices for questioning these youth.

Evaluating autobiographical skills and their relationship with suggestibility in children: development and validation of the Children Recalling Autobiographical Memory

Introduction

Autobiographical narrative skills and resistance to suggestibility factors are central aspects in children's testimony. While the assessment of suggestibility relies on standardized questionnaire, no such an instrument exists to reliably assess autobiographical skills in children. This aspect is further important when considering that the development of such skills seems to be related to the suggestibility, that is, suggestibility would be reduced in presence of higher autobiographical skills. However, no direct test of this relationship is available in literature, also due to the lack of quantitative instruments for assessing autobiographical skills.

Methods

To fulfill both these methodological and theoretical issues, in this study a new tool was validated to measure the main autobiographical narrative skills (Where, What, When, Who, and How) in relation to both Retrospective Memory and Prospective Memory: the Children Recalling Autobiographical Memory (CRAM). We recruited a sample of 321 children aged 7-16 years.

Results and discussion

The result of the EFA analysis showed one-factor model, and revealed also good fit indexes and internal reliability. After validating this new tool, we further used it to test our main hypothesis, that is, children with higher autobiographical memory skills were less vulnerable to interrogative suggestibility as assessed by Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale 2 (GSS2). A hierarchical linear regression model showed a reduction in suggestibility with age and level of autobiographical skills. Moreover, the level of such skills moderate the effect of age, such as only in presence of high or moderate level of autobiographical skills the age significantly reduces the level of suggestibility.

Effects of Guiding Ground Rules and Individual Differences on the Accuracy of Children's Free Recall and Suggestibility

This research examines how the presence or absence of ground rules and children's temperamental tendencies affect children's free recall accuracy and suggestibility. Participating children showed richer free recall with open-ended questions and displayed greater resistance to suggestive questions when provided ground rules during the interview. In addition, children's recall accuracy varied based on their prosocial orientation: the presence or absence of ground rules influenced memory accuracy more in children with a low prosocial orientation than in those with a high prosocial orientation. These results demonstrate the importance of ground rules for obtaining reliable statements from children during investigative interviews. Findings further suggest that children can provide more detailed information when temperamental characteristics (e.g. prosocial tendencies) are considered.

The Impact of the Consistency of Child Witness and Peer Reports on Credibility

Adults' perceptions of children's disclosures have important implications for the response to that disclosure. Children who experience adult transgressions, such as maltreatment, often choose to disclose this experience to a peer. Thus, peer disclosure recipients may transmit this disclosure to an adult or provide support for the child's own disclosure. Despite this, the influence of peer disclosure on a child witness's credibility, as well as on the perceptions of peer disclosure recipients, is unknown. The present study examined how child witnesses' and peer disclosure recipients' credibility is impacted when the peer either confirms or contradicts the witness's disclosure (or concealment) of an adult transgression. Participants listened to a child witness and peer being interviewed by an adult in one of four disclosure patterns (consistent disclose, consistent conceal, witness disclose/peer conceal, or witness conceal/peer disclose). Participants rated both the witness and the peer on dimensions of credibility (honesty and cognitive competence). Results revealed that both the witness and peer were more credible when their reports were consistent with one another. When inconsistent, the witness/peer who disclosed was considered more credible than the one who concealed. The findings indicate the potential importance of peers in the disclosure process as they may support the witness's report and even be a credible discloser when the witness is reluctant to disclose.

No gesture too small: An investigation into the ability of gestural information to mislead eyewitness accounts by 5- to 8-year-olds

The accuracy of eyewitness interviews has legal and clinical implications within the criminal justice system. Leading verbal suggestions have been shown to give rise to false memories and inaccurate testimonies in children, but only a small body of research exists regarding non-verbal communication. The present study examined whether 5- to 8-year-olds in the UK could be misled about their memory of an event through exposure to leading gestural information, which suggested an incorrect response, using a variety of question and gesture types. Results showed that leading gestures significantly corrupted participants' memory compared to the control group (MD = 0.60, p < 0.001), with participants being misled by at least one question nearly three-quarters of the time. Questions about peripheral details, and gestures that were more visible and expressive, increased false memory further, with even subtle gestures demonstrating a strong misleading influence. We discuss the implications of these findings for the guidelines governing eyewitness interviews.

How Chronological Age, Theory of Mind, and Yield are Interrelated to Memory and Suggestion in Young Children

We investigated the interrelations between chronological age, theory of mind (ToM), Yield (as a measure of individual suggestibility), memory and acceptance of experimental suggestion in a sample of children between 3 and 7 years old (N = 106). One week after participants interacted with 'a Teacher', they were asked to recall activities carried out with the Teacher (direct experience) and the contents of a story read to them by the Teacher (indirect experience). Data were examined with an analysis of developmental trajectories, which allows establishing the predictor value of socio-cognitive developmental factors regardless of participants' chronological age. It also estimates predictor values in interaction with the age and determines whether age is the best predictor for performance. As in previous research, results showed that chronological age was the main predictor of memory performance, both for direct experience (i.e., activities performed) and indirect experience (i.e., contents of the story). However, ToM and Yield, together with participants' ages, modulated their acceptance of the external suggestions received (presented only once, one week after the event). A turning point was observed at age 4.6. Below this age, the greater the mentalist skills (higher ToM), the lower was the vulnerability to external suggestion. Still, children below this age characterized individually as being suggestible (Yield medium or high) were more vulnerable to suggestion the younger they were. Thus, developmental socio-cognitive factors might modulate young children's vulnerability to external suggestions, even if received only once.

Children’s needs during disclosures of abuse

A Narrative Literature Review was conducted providing a comprehensive overview of children’s barriers to disclose during investigations of child abuse. Patterns in the literature were categorized as themes and include: rapport and relationship with the interviewer, feeling in control and prepared, communication, physical abilities, mental health, environment, family dynamics, culture and individual uniqueness. Using a combination of a critical analyses approach and drawing from personal background experiences and knowledge in working with children during disclosures, the themes are expanded upon as a discussion that explores what children may therapeutically need during their disclosures of abuse within the forensic interview. Some practice implications are incorporated with the intent to generate further thinking about addressing children’s needs during investigations of child abuse. Working with multidisciplinary teams in Child and Youth Advocacy Centres is discussed and may be a resource for understanding children’s needs during disclosures of abuse.

Parent-child attachment security is associated with preschoolers' memory accuracy for emotional life events through sensitive parental reminiscing

There is considerable controversy regarding the accuracy and suggestibility of children's autobiographical memory for emotionally salient life events. Attachment perspectives of autobiographical memory development identify the attachment security of parent-child dyads and parents' emotional support and coherence during reminiscing with their children as critical mechanisms underlying children's memory accuracy and suggestibility. In the current investigation, 72 preschool-aged children (M = 4.01 years, SD = 0.85; 44 female) reminisced with their parents about times they felt happy, sad, scared, and angry. Children were then independently interviewed about these experiences by an unfamiliar researcher using free recall, specific questions (i.e., questions about factual details), and misleading questions (i.e., questions suggesting false details). Parents completed an assessment of their children's attachment security within the parent-child relationship. Results revealed significant indirect effects of parent-child attachment security on children's memory accuracy through parental sensitive guidance during reminiscing when cognitive (i.e., intelligence) and behavioral (i.e., temperament, behavior problems) covariates were statistically controlled. Parent-child attachment security was positively associated with parental sensitive guidance during reminiscing, which, in turn, was positively associated with the accuracy of children's independent reports. The findings support attachment perspectives of autobiographical memory by identifying emotionally sensitive and coherent reminiscing as a parenting behavior that explains in part associations between parent-child attachment security and children's independent memory accuracy for emotional life events.

Coping Strategies, Immediate and Delayed Suggestibility among Children and Adolescents

Knowing the factors that influence children’s suggestibility is important in implementing the psychological variables to be evaluated during a forensic evaluation. In the interrogative suggestibility model, coping strategies intervene in determining the acceptance or rejection of the leading question. However, studies that investigated the relationship between interrogative suggestibility and coping strategies had mixed results. Avoidance-oriented coping is associated with high level to immediate suggestibility and problem-focused with low levels. In this study, we measured immediate suggestibility, delayed suggestibility, and coping strategies in a sample of 100 children. We hypothesized that avoidance-oriented coping strategies have a predictive effect in increasing immediate suggestibility levels, in particular avoidance-oriented coping oriented towards the tendency to accept leading questions. No effect of coping strategies was expected on delayed suggestibility. All children completed the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (GSS 2), a non-verbal IQ test, and the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS). Coping strategies were not related to delayed suggestibility, but avoidance-oriented coping correlated positively with immediate suggestibility. Avoidance-oriented coping emerged as the only significant predictive model for shift and total suggestibility, and its subscale distraction emerged as a predictor for Yield 1 and Yield 2. No predictors emerged for delayed suggestibility. Results are discussed for their theoretical implications.

Differential effects of direct and cross examination on mock jurors' perceptions and memory in cases of child sexual abuse

When children testify in cases of child sexual abuse (CSA), they often provide minimal responses to attorneys' questions. Thus, how attorneys ask questions may be particularly influential in shaping jurors' perceptions and memory for case details. This study examined mock jurors' perceptions after reading an excerpt of a CSA trial transcript. Participants' memory of the excerpt was tested after a two-day delay. We examined how reading a direct or cross-examination excerpt that included either high or low temporal structure impacted participants' perceptions, verdict decisions and memory reports. We found that participants who read a direct examination excerpt rated the child witness as more credible, were more likely to convict the defendant and had more accurate memory reports than those who read a cross-examination excerpt, regardless of temporal structure. Suggestions for improving jurors' comprehension and recall of child statements presented as evidence in CSA cases are discussed.

Developmental differences in children's learning and use of forensic ground rules during an interview about an experienced event

Children often answer questions when they do not have the requisite knowledge or when they do not understand them. We examined whether ground rules instruction—to say “I don’t know,” to tell the truth, and to correct the interviewer when necessary—assisted children in applying those rules during an interview about a past event and whether doing so was associated with more accurate accounts. We compared children with intellectual disabilities (mild or moderate severity, n = 44, 7–12 years) with 3 groups of typically developing children (2 matched for mental age, and 1 for chronological age, n = 55, 4–12 years) on their understanding of 3 ground rules, their use of these rules in an interview, and their accuracy in recalling a personally experienced event. Many children were able to demonstrate proficiency with the rules following simple instruction but others required additional teaching. Children applied the rules sparingly in the interview. Their scores on the practice trials of each rule were unrelated to each other, and to the use of the rules in context. Their developmental level was significantly related to both of these skills. Regression models showed that developmental level was the best predictor of children’s accuracy when they recounted their experience during the interview but that use of responses consistent with the rules, in conjunction with developmental level, predicted accurate resistance to suggestive questions. Future research should identify how best to prepare children of different ages and cognitive abilities to answer adults’ questions appropriately.