Search

While there has been considerable research on investigative interviews with children over the last three decades, there remains much to learn. The aim of this paper was to identify some of the issues and prospects for future scientific study that most urgently need to be addressed. Across 10 commentaries, leading scholars and practitioners highlight areas where additional research is needed on investigative interview practices with youths. Overarching themes include the need for better understanding of rapport‐building and its impact, as well as greater focus on social‐cultural and developmental factors and the needs of adolescents. There are calls to examine how interviews are occurring in real‐world contexts to better inform best practice recommendations in the field, to find means for ensuring better adherence to best practices among various groups of practitioners, and to understand their importance and impact when not followed, including by those testifying in courts. All reflect the need to better address that recurring challenge of reliably and consistently eliciting accurate and credible information from potentially reluctant young witnesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although parents are significant sources of socialization in children's lives including with respect to their moral behavior, very little research has focused on how parents socialize children's honesty and dishonesty, especially parents of atypically developing children for whom lying is of substantial concern. We surveyed 49 parents of typically-developing (TD) children (M age  = 7.49, SD = 1.54) and 47 parents of children who had been diagnosed with a disruptive behavior disorder (DBD; M age  = 7.64, SD = 1.39) regarding their beliefs and attitudes about honesty and dishonesty, including in response to hypothetical vignettes; their messages to their children about honesty and dishonesty (e.g., punishment); and their own lying behavior and perceptions of their child's lying behavior. Results revealed that, in comparison to parents of TD children, parents of children with DBD reported (a) more punitive reactions to children's lying behavior, including in response to the hypothetical vignettes, (b) less encouragement of dishonesty among their children, and (3) perceiving their children as more prolific and sophisticated liars. Findings shed light on potential sources of individual differences in children's lie telling and may have implications for interventions for children with DBD and their parents.

The underlying reasons for recantation in children's disclosure of child sexual abuse (CSA) have been debated in recent years. In the present study, we examined the largest sample of substantiated CSA cases involving recantations to date (n = 58 cases). We specifically matched those cases to 58 nonrecanters on key variables found to predict recantation in prior research (i.e., child age, alleged parent figure perpetrator, and caregiver unsupportiveness). Bivariate analyses revealed that children were less likely to recant when they were (1) initially removed from home postdisclosure and (2) initially separated from siblings postdisclosure. Multivariate analyses revealed that children were less likely to recant when family members (other than the nonoffending caregiver) expressed belief in the children's allegations and more likely to recant when family members (other than the nonoffending caregiver) expressed disbelief in the allegations and when visitations with the alleged perpetrator were recommended at their first hearing. Results have implications for understanding the complex ways in which social processes may motivate some children to retract previous reports of sexual abuse., (© The Author(s) 2016.)

Child maltreatment cases often hinge on a child's word versus a defendant's word, making children's disclosures crucially important. There is considerable debate concerning why children recant allegations, and it is imperative to examine recantation experimentally. The purpose of this laboratory analogue investigation was to test (a) how often children recant true allegations of an adult's wrongdoing after disclosing and (b) whether children's age and caregiver supportiveness predict recantation. During an interactive event, 6- to 9-year-olds witnessed an experimenter break a puppet and were asked to keep the transgression a secret. Children were then interviewed to elicit a disclosure of the transgression. Mothers were randomly assigned to react supportively or unsupportively to this disclosure, and children were interviewed again. We coded children's recantations (explicit denials of the broken puppet after disclosing) and changes in their forthcomingness (shifts from denial or claims of lack of knowledge/memory to disclosure and vice versa) in free recall and in response to focused questions about the transgression. Overall, 23.3% of the children recanted their prior disclosures (46% and 0% in the unsupportive and supportive conditions, respectively). No age differences in recantation rates emerged, but 8- and 9-year-olds were more likely than 6- and 7-year-olds to maintain their recantation throughout Interview 2. Children whose mothers reacted supportively to disclosure became more forthcoming in Interview 2, and those whose mothers reacted unsupportively became less forthcoming. Results advance theoretical understanding of how children disclose negative experiences, including sociomotivational influences on their reports, and have practical implications for the legal system., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Little is known about the process by which children disclose adult wrongdoing, a topic of considerable debate and controversy. In the current study, we investigated children's evaluations of disclosing adult wrongdoing by focusing on children's preferences for particular disclosure recipients and perceptions of the consequences of disclosure in hypothetical vignettes. We tested whether children thought that disclosure recipients would believe a story child as a truth teller and what actions the recipients would take against the "instigator" who committed the transgression. Maltreated and non-maltreated 4- to 9-year-olds (N=235) responded to questions about vignettes that described a parent's or stranger's transgression. Older children preferred caregiver recipients over police officer recipients when disclosing a parent's transgression but not a stranger's transgression. Maltreated children's preference for caregiver recipients over police officer recipients developed more gradually than that of non-maltreated children. Older children expected disclosure recipients to be more skeptical of the story child's account, and older children and maltreated children expected disclosure recipients to intervene formally less often when a parent, rather than a stranger, was the instigator. Results contribute to understanding vulnerable children's development and highlight the developmental, experiential, and socio-contextual factors underlying children's disclosure patterns., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)