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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.

Prior research has found that children disclosing physical abuse appear more reticent and less consistent than children disclosing sexual abuse. Although this has been attributed to differences in reluctance, it may also be due to differences in the process by which abuse is suspected and investigated. Disclosure may play a larger role in arousing suspicions of sexual abuse, while other evidence may play a larger role in arousing suspicions of physical abuse. As a result, children who disclose physical abuse in formal investigations may be doing so for the first time, and they may be more reluctant to provide details of the abuse. We examined abuse disclosure and evidence in comparable samples of court-substantiated physical (n = 33) and sexual (n = 28) abuse. Consistent with predictions, the likelihood that the child had disclosed abuse before an investigation began was lower in physical (27%) than that in sexual (67%) abuse cases, and there was more nondisclosure evidence of abuse in physical abuse cases. These findings have implications for understanding the dynamics and meaning of disclosure in cases involving different types of abuse.

We describe a Bayesian approach to evaluating children's abuse disclosures and review research demonstrating that children's disclosure of genital touch can be highly probative of sexual abuse, with the probative value depending on disclosure spontaneity and children's age. We discuss how some commentators understate the probative value of children's disclosures by: confusing the probability of abuse given disclosure with the probability of disclosure given abuse, assuming that children formally questioned about sexual abuse have a low prior probability of sexual abuse, misstating the probative value of abuse disclosure, and confusing the distinction between disclosure and nondisclosure with the distinction between true and false disclosures. We review interviewing methods that increase the probative value of disclosures, including interview instructions, narrative practice, noncontingent reinforcement, and questions about perpetrator/caregiver statements and children's reactions to the alleged abuse. (Contains 3 notes.)

This study examined the origins of children's ability to make consciously false statements, a necessary component of lying. Children 2 to 5 years of age were rewarded for claiming that they saw a picture of a bird when viewing pictures of fish. They were asked outcome questions ("Do you win/lose?"), recognition questions ("Do you have a bird/fish?"), and recall questions ("What do you have?"), which were hypothesized to vary in difficulty depending on the need for consciousness of falsity (less for outcome questions) and self-generation of an appropriate response (more for recall questions). The youngest children (2 1/2 to 3 1/2 years old) were above chance on outcome questions, but it was not until age 3 1/2 that children performed above chance on recognition questions or were capable of maintaining false claims across question types. Findings have implications for understanding the emergence of deception in young children. (Contains 2 tables and 1 figure.)

A total of two hundred ninety-nine 4- to 9-year-old maltreated and nonmaltreated children of comparable socioeconomic status and ethnicity judged whether children should or would disclose unspecified transgressions of adults (instigators) to other adults (recipients) in scenarios varying the identity of the instigator (stranger or parent), the identity of the recipient (parent, police, or teacher), and the severity of the transgression ("something really bad" or "something just a little bad"). Children endorsed more disclosure against stranger than parent instigators and less disclosure to teacher than parent and police recipients. The youngest maltreated children endorsed less disclosure than nonmaltreated children, but the opposite was true among the oldest children. Older maltreated children distinguished less than nonmaltreated children between parents and other types of instigators and recipients.

Socio-emotional dynamics were examined in 230 forensic interviews of 3- to -13-year-old Israeli children who disclosed chronic physical abuse that could be substantiated. Half of the children were interviewed using the Standard (SP) National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Protocol and the others using the Revised Protocol (RP) that emphasized emotional support from interviewers. When children disclosed physical abuse in the RP interviews, they did so in response to fewer prompts than children in the SP interviews. The number of turns in the transitional phase (during which the interviewer transitioned from rapport-building to exploring the possibility of abuse) was associated with increased directness and more specific utterance types. The younger children displayed reluctance more than older children. The RP interviews were characterized by more emotionally supportive statements throughout. These findings highlight various aspects of child forensic interviews that should be considered when seeking to understand children's willingness to engage with interviewers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Child witnesses are often asked wh- prompts (what, how, why, who, when, where) in forensic interviews. However, little research has examined the ways in which children respond to different wh- prompts, and no previous research has investigated productivity differences among wh- prompts in investigative interviews. This study examined the use and productivity of wh- prompts in 95 transcripts of 4- to 13-year-olds alleging sexual abuse in child investigative interviews. What–how questions about actions elicited the most productive responses during both the rapport building and substantive phases. Future research and practitioner training should consider distinguishing among different wh- prompts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined police officers' and social workers' experiences of investigating child sexual exploitation (CSE) cases and the impact on their welfare. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with frontline social workers and law enforcement professionals. Practitioners reported that they seldom reacted emotionally during forensic interviews because they were attending entirely to the victims while gathering evidence. Although some practitioners employed post-interview stress management techniques, anticipatory coping strategies were seldom adopted, and most coping methods were employed outside of the workplace (e.g., spending time with family). Practitioners focused on the needs of young people, almost to the exclusion of their own. Many did not consider the negative emotional impact of CSE cases on their welfare. These findings have important implications for practitioner wellbeing. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key Practitioner Messages Practitioners rarely considered the emotional effects that CSE cases might have on them or ways to psychologically prepare themselves before meeting with young people., Practitioners reported a variety of ways they managed the impact of working with CSE which most often occurred outside of the workplace; a number of these ways could be actively promoted and developed within police forces and local authorities, especially preventative coping strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Young people suspected of being sexually exploited are unlikely to have made prior disclosures before being approached by authorities, and this can make them especially uncomfortable when involved in investigations. Semistructured interviews were conducted with frontline social workers and law enforcement practitioners about their experiences interacting with youth during child sexual exploitation investigations. The findings provided some tentative insights into the processes by which practitioners sought to establish rapport with young people who have been exploited and establish themselves as trustworthy abuse disclosure recipients. Practitioners reported that rapport building in child sexual exploitation cases not only occurred over lengthy periods of time (e.g., months or years) but also required repeated contacts between the practitioners and young people, during which practitioners minimized their roles as authorities and maximized their authenticity as caring people. Practitioners mentioned the importance of dependability, lightheartedness, and having a casual demeanor. Findings have implications for managing reluctance and understanding rapport building when working with possible victims. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study examined the origins of children's ability to make consciously false statements, a necessary component of lying. Children 2 to 5 years of age were rewarded for claiming that they saw a picture of a bird when viewing pictures of fish. They were asked outcome questions ("Do you win/lose?"), recognition questions ("Do you have a bird/fish?"), and recall questions ("What do you have?"), which were hypothesized to vary in difficulty depending on the need for consciousness of falsity (less for outcome questions) and self-generation of an appropriate response (more for recall questions). The youngest children (2½ to 3½ years old) were above chance on outcome questions, but it was not until age 3½ that children performed above chance on recognition questions or were capable of maintaining false claims across question types. Findings have implications for understanding the emergence of deception in young children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]