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Children's Requests for Clarification in Investigative Interviews About Suspected Sexual Abuse
Author(s) -
Malloy Lindsay C.,
Katz Carmit,
Lamb Michael E.,
Mugno Allison P.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.3101
Subject(s) - interview , psychology , cognitive interview , child sexual abuse , sexual abuse , intervention (counseling) , psychological intervention , child abuse , cognition , developmental psychology , suicide prevention , social psychology , clinical psychology , poison control , psychiatry , medical emergency , medicine , political science , law
Summary In investigative interviews, it is vital that children request clarification when necessary so that crucial legal decisions can take into account the most accurate and detailed information. In the present study, 91 investigative interview transcripts about suspected child sexual abuse were coded to answer these research questions: (i) How often and how do children request clarification in investigative interviews? (ii) What factors (age, alleged abuse frequency, interviewer prompt type) are associated with children's requests? and (iii) How do interviewers respond to clarification requests, and are these interventions associated with relevant responses from children? Children rarely requested clarification, although, as expected, older children made more requests. Most requests were explicit (e.g., What do you mean?) and in response to invitation prompts. Question ‘rephrasing’ was the most common interviewer intervention regardless of child age. Results have implications for interviewing children in various contexts and for advancing our understanding of children's cognitive and communicative development. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.