Children with Intellectual Disabilities and Developmental Disorders

Henry, Lucy A.; Bettenay, Caroline; Carney, Daniel P.J.

doi:10.1002/9781119998495.ch13

Cited by 21 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 89 publications

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“…Children's communicative abilities may also have led interviewers to assume the need to provide more support in the form of directive interviewing strategies. Young children and CWIDs may lack adequate vocabulary or narrative skill to describe their experiences (Agnew et al ., ; Brown, Brown, Lewis & Lamb, ; Henry, Bettaney, et al ., ; Henry, Ridley, et al ., ; Murfett, Powell, & Snow, ), and thus offer ambiguous statements or descriptions that require follow‐up prompting to clarify. Unfortunately, the extent to which language difficulties affect the reporting capacities of CWID witnesses has yet to be examined.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moving prematurely to more directive styles of interviewing, or neglecting to that encourage narrative responding throughout the interview, may well undermine the ability of CWIDs to provide spontaneous details without interviewer input and potential contamination. Appropriate planning for the interview involves establishing the nature and extent of a child's cognitive and communicative impairment prior to the interview (Henry, Bettaney, et al ., ; Henry, Ridley, et al ., ), but investigators should not underestimate the capacities of CWIDs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This may be due, in part, to investigators’, prosecutors’, and jurors’ doubts about the ability of children with intellectual disabilities (CWIDs) to provide meaningful, detailed, and reliable information (e.g., Brown & Lewis, ; Henry, Ridley, et al ., ; Peled, Iarocci, & Connolly, ), and concern that prosecutions will therefore be unsuccessful (Aarons & Powell, ; Aarons, Powell, & Browne, ; Ericson, Perlman, & Isaacs, ; Nathanson & Platt, ). Developing evidence‐based recommendations for obtaining reliable information from CWID is important to facilitate their increased participation in legal proceedings (Henry, Bettaney, & Carney, ). CWIDs do participate in forensic interviews and court trials in a number of countries (e.g., Cederborg, Danielsson, LaRooy, & Lamb, ; Cederborg & Lamb, ; Cederborg, LaRooy, & Lamb, ; Hanna, Davies, Henderson, Crothers, & Rotherham, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Interviewers’ approaches to questioning vulnerable child witnesses: The influences of developmental level versus intellectual disability status

Brown

Lewis

Stephens

et al. 2017

Legal Criminol Psychol

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Purpose Children with intellectual disabilities (CWIDs) are vulnerable to victimization, but we know little about how to interview them about possible maltreatment. We examined whether interviewers used proportionally more direct and option‐posing, and fewer open questions, with CWID than with typically developing (TD) children or with less mature children regardless of disability, taking into account the contribution of the amount of information conveyed by the child. Method One hundred and twelve children (4–12 years) participated in a staged event and were interviewed 1 week later using the NICHD Investigative Interview Protocol. We examined the proportions of different interview prompts posed to CWID of either mild (CWID‐Mild) or moderate (CWID‐Moderate) severity compared with typically developing children matched for chronological (CA) and mental (MA) age. Results Even when controlling for the amount that the child said, the overall number and relative proportions of each question type posed to each group varied. Interviewers asked more cued invitations and fewer direct questions of CA‐matched children than younger TD participants or both CWID groups. Option‐posing questions comprised a larger proportion of the interviews with both ID groups than with CA matches. The few suggestive questions were posed more to CWID‐Moderate. Conclusions Although research has shown that CWID and young TD children can provide reliable information in response to very open prompting, interviewers tend not to ask such questions. Interviewing strategy was influenced by both developmental level and intellectual disability status, in conjunction with children's individual contributions to the interview, emphasizing the importance of interviewers’ understanding the capacities and vulnerabilities of the children they interview from both a developmental and cognitive perspective.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Interviewers’ approaches to questioning vulnerable child witnesses: The influences of developmental level versus intellectual disability status

Brown

Lewis

Stephens

et al. 2017

Legal Criminol Psychol

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“…Children with developmental disorders may show a range of cognitive strengths and weaknesses that could affect their ability to respond to different types of questions and challenges. We know, for example, that children's working memory skills show differing profiles depending upon which developmental disorder(s) they have (Henry, ), and work has begun to develop appropriate ways to interview them (see Henry, Bettenay, & Carney, 2011). It is possible that such factors may also predict performance under cross‐examination.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cross‐examination: The Testimony of Children With and Without Intellectual Disabilities

Bettenay

Ridley

Henry

et al. 2013

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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This is the unspecified version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Cross-examination of children with and without intellectual disability 2 Permanent repository link: AbstractThe present study assessed how children with a range of cognitive abilities fared during a mock cross-examination. Ninety children (aged 4 to 11 years; 18 with intellectual disabilities [ID], 13 with borderline intellectual disabilities [BID], and 59 who were typically developing [TD]) witnessed a staged event, participated in an initial forensic interview (a few days later), and were cross-examined by a barrister-in-training (ten months later). During cross-examination, 98% of all children changed at least one response from their initial interview when challenged. However, group differences in performance (total number of changed responses, 'resistance' to challenges), controlling for age and memory for event details, were not significant or did not prove reliable at the level of individual group contrasts. Overall, little robust evidence for group differences in performance on crossexamination could be identified, and memory for event details was the most reliable predictor of performance. Keywords: Child witnesses; cross-examination; intellectual disabilitiesCross-examination of children with and without intellectual disability 3 Cross-examination of children with and without intellectual disabilitiesIn an adversarial system of justice such as that of the UK, Australia and the USA, there is a strong emphasis on oral testimony from witnesses about the facts of a disputed case (Ellison, 2001). In court, following the presentation of direct evidence by the prosecution (testimony from the victim, witness or defendant), cross-examination is undertaken by opposing counsel to challenge the reliability of a witness's evidence and, ostensibly, to search for the truth (Wellman, 1986;Yarmey, 1979). Effective cross-examination highlights inconsistencies in witness testimony. Yet the techniques employed to do this, such as pressing the witness to change their response (Zajac, Gross & Hayne, 2003), accusing the witness of lying (Davies, Henderson & Seymour, 1997;Plotnikoff & Woolfson, 2009;Spencer, 2012), repetitive and complex questioning (Plotnikoff & Woolfson, 2012;Zajac, 2009) and deliberately setting the sequence of questioning to confuse the witness (Glissan, 1991) are, in reality, concerned with discrediting a witness (Henderson, 2002). The demands on a witness to produce reliable oral evidence, often many months or even years, after an event are high, and witnesses find the process stressful, aggressive and anxiety provoking (Plotnikoff & Woolfson, 2009Zajac, 2009 However, the questions (and questioning style) used during cross-examination often run counter to available research/protocols, and the use of ABE guidelines does not extend to the process of cross-examination. In fact, legal professionals show considerable resistance to proposals to alter cross-examination procedures (see Spence...

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“…Children included in the study were capable of basic verbal communication (minimal phrase‐based speech), confirmed in consultation with the children's teachers. Those with intellectual disabilities arising from organic syndromes (e.g., Williams or Down Syndrome) and those with diagnoses of autistic spectrum disorder were excluded, because specific social, behavioral, and information processing differences have been observed in these groups (Henry, Bettaney, & Carney, ). Consultation with children's teachers suggested that none of the children had any documented comorbid behavioral difficulties (e.g., ADHD and conduct disorder).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Narrative skill and testimonial accuracy in typically developing children and those with intellectual disabilities

Brown

Lewis

et al. 2018

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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SummaryChildren must describe maltreatment coherently for their testimony to be influential in court. We know little about how well children with intellectual disabilities (CWID) describe their experiences relative to typically developing (TD) children, despite CWID's vulnerability to maltreatment. We investigated children's reports of an experienced event and compared coherence in CWID (mild to moderate impairment: 7–11 years) with TD children matched for mental (4–10 years) or chronological age (7–11 years). All children included important markers of narrative coherence in their reports. Children with lower mental ages, particularly those with an intellectual disability, included fewer markers of narrative coherence in their reports than children with higher mental ages. Individual markers of narrative coherence, particularly recall of content, predicted accuracy of testimony and resistance to suggestion even when disability and mental age were taken into account. These findings highlight the importance of helping children to describe their experiences coherently.

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Children with Intellectual Disabilities and Developmental Disorders

Cited by 21 publications

References 89 publications

Interviewers’ approaches to questioning vulnerable child witnesses: The influences of developmental level versus intellectual disability status

Interviewers’ approaches to questioning vulnerable child witnesses: The influences of developmental level versus intellectual disability status

Cross‐examination: The Testimony of Children With and Without Intellectual Disabilities

Narrative skill and testimonial accuracy in typically developing children and those with intellectual disabilities

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