An examination of the questioning styles of police officers and caregivers when interviewing children with intellectual disabilities

Abstract

Reproduction in any form (including the internet) is prohibited without prior permission from the Society (14%). The higher rate of these latter two negative strategies among caregivers is also highlighted when considering the proportion of interviewers in each interviewer category who used each of the prompts at least once. No police officer criticized the child, only 4% stated that there is more to tell and only 7% disputed information recalled by the child or asked the child if they were sure about their response. In contrast, 39% of caregivers criticized the child on at least one occasion during the interview, 32% stated there must be more to tell and 46% either disputed information recalled by the child or asked the child if they were sure about their response.Police interviewers' responses when target items were not reported in context Within the police interviews, children provided a total of 46 specific target details that were not described in context (M ¼ 1:64, SD ¼ 1:39). Police were found to follow-up 61% of these details at some point in the interview, using a total of 75 prompts (M ¼ 2:68, SD ¼ 4:76). Of the possible types of prompts available to elicit the information, the majority (59%) were specific cued-recall prompts (e.g. who, what, when, where or how questions). For the remaining follow-up prompts, 20% were closed questions, 17% were open-question prompts and on 4% of occasions a clarification prompt was used (e.g. 'I'm sorry, you said something about a Boo, what were you saying?'). Of those specific items that were followed-up, on only 9 (31%) of the occasions did children actually provide the specific contextual information.

Interviewing behaviors in police investigators: a field study of a current US sample

“…However, child witness interviewers without specific training still appear to favor closed over open-ended questions. This trend can be observed both in the USA and other countries including Sweden (Cederborg, Orbach, Sternberg & Lamb, 2000), Norway (Myklebust & Alison, 2000), the UK (Davies, Wilson, Mitchell & Milsom, 1995), Israel (Hershkowitz, Horowitz, Lamb, Orbach & Sternberg, 2004;, Australia (Agnew, Powell & Snow, 2006;Guadagno & Powell, 2009) and Canada (Cyr & Lamb, 2009). Schreiber et al (2006) compared child witness interviews in day care abuse cases with interviewing behavior in a US sample of Child Protection Service (CPS) interviews and found similar results including a preponderance of closed questions and frequent insertions of suggestive information into the interview.…”

An Exploratory Study of the Knowledge of Personal Safety Skills Among Children with Developmental Disabilities and Their Parents

“…beginning with questions about interests and friendships), involved multiple open‐ended prompts and avoided reliance on advanced communication skills that may be limiting for some children with disabilities (Agnew et al . ; Cederborg & Lamb ; Bowles & Sharman ). For each child who participated in the interview, a parent completed a questionnaire assessing perceptions of the child's knowledge regarding puberty and physical development, and abilities related to personal safety.…”

Child maltreatment, mental health and oral language competence: Inviting speech-language pathology to the prevention table

“…The low probability of reports of abuse is compounded by the fact that speech and language impairments are frequently experienced by such children. Even if such a child did recognize the inappropriateness of their handling, they may not have the communicative means to convey this information to a trusted adult (Agnew, Powell, & Snow, 2006).…”