Clinical Expertise and the Assessment of Child Sexual Abuse

The challenge of assessing credibility when children with intellectual disabilities are alleged victims of abuse

“…Research shows that legal professionals may form inaccurate notions about what can be understood as credible reports (Granhag and Strö mwall 2003) and both analogue studies (Ceci et al 1994;Horner, Guyer, and Kalter 1993a;Guyer and Kalter 1993b;Poole and Lindsey 1997) and studies of real forensic interviews (Finlayson and Koocher 1991;Jackson and Nuttal 1993) show that professionals have difficulty determining whether statements are true or false. Legal representatives perceive young children as less accurate and less credible than older children (Goodman et al 1987;Nightingale 1993;Bringham 1998) but young child victims can also be perceived as more credible than older victims when the young victims possess age inappropriate sexual knowledge (Bottoms and Goodman 1994).…”

The role of corroborative evidence in child sexual abuse evaluations

“…Because of base rate issues, detection bias, and other problems, there is a widespreadbut not universal-consensus amongst social science researchers that MHPs' judgements about the validity of uncorroborated allegations of CSA lack a fi rm scientifi c foundation (Benedek, Derdeyn, Effron, Guyer, Hayden, Jurrow et al, 1998;Faust & Ziskin, 1988;Faust et al, 2009a;Fisher, 1995;Fisher & Whiting, 1998;Goodman, Emery, & Haugaard, 1998;Herman, 2005Herman, , 2009Horner, Guyer, & Kalter, 1993b;Melton & Limber, 1989;Poole & Lindsay, 1998). Melton, Petrila, Poythress, and Slobogin (2007), in their authoritative text on forensic psychological evaluations, state that expert opinions about the validity of abuse allegations should not be considered legally admissible because there is no evidence that mental health professionals' opinions about the validity of CSA allegations are any more accurate than those made by legal fact fi nders:…”

Allegations of Sexual Abuse in the Family Court of Australia: Implications ofRe W(Sex Abuse: Standard of Proof) [2004] FLC 93–192

“…3 Ten years earlier, in his dissenting judgement in K v B, 4 Kay J quoted at length from an American family law article. 5 The Full Court, in Re W, repeated Kay J's quotation from K v B, including:…”