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Thinking fast and slow in the evaluation of injury plausibility in child protection
Author(s) -
Skellern Catherine
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of paediatrics and child health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.631
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1440-1754
pISSN - 1034-4810
DOI - 10.1111/jpc.15084
Subject(s) - causation , medicine , context (archaeology) , poison control , dual (grammatical number) , injury prevention , cognitive psychology , human factors and ergonomics , developmental psychology , medical emergency , epistemology , psychology , art , paleontology , philosophy , literature , biology
In evaluating injury in children, child protection paediatricians are tasked with determining whether the history given by parents or caregivers is valid with respect to explaining injury causation. This paper summarises metacognition and in particular the dual processing theory of ‘fast and slow thinking’ to explain how complex information in contexts of uncertainty is processed to produce decisions and responses, applied to a child protection context. An example is used that resembles abusive head trauma which focuses on understanding the difference between likelihood and plausibility in forensic interpretations of injury causation.