Interviewing young traumatized children, particularly those traumatized by physical and sexual abuse, is difficult, not only because of children's recall deficiencies, but more often because standard interviewing formats can be ineffective with economically disadvantaged and culturally different children. Economically disadvantaged children's exposure to different family interaction patterns and control-dominated childrearing styles can affect their ability to respond to both verbal and non-verbal interviewing techniques. In addition, normal children's familiarity with the material to be remembered, their motivation to remember, their cognitive style and their communication skill all influence interview outcomes. Suggestions are included for improving non-leading interview methods with young children using both verbal and non-verbal techniques.

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Examination of the evaluation sample and the outcome data from the Fort Bragg Demonstration Project suggests that the children served were mildly disturbed, were atypical of those served in most public mental health clinics, spent less than optimal time in the new services developed, and were judged as making considerable progress with minimal treatment regardless of age or level of judged psychopathology. The use of normative outcome measures in a pre-post design was considered a major reason for failure to find any significant differences between differently treated children.

A review is presented of twenty years of effort to evaluate change in response to residential treatment. Educational achievements, intelligence, sociometric standing, diagnosis, behavioral symptomatology, and developmental attainments were all employed at various times to assess improvement-with minimal success. The agency now principally relies on team evaluation of developmental objectives, a return to the technique of twenty years ago. Problems encountered with each measure are discussed.