Immediate and repeat interrogative suggestibility in a sample of adolescents with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder

Abstract

Individuals with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) are more likely to be involved with the criminal justice system (CJS) than neurotypical individuals. Interrogative suggestibility is theorised to be a weakness in this population; this is the first experimental evidence of interrogative suggestibility in adolescents with FASD. Fifty‐two participants (aged 11–16 years) completed the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale immediately and after 1 week; the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children; and the Behavioural Rating of Executive Function. Compared to the control group, individuals with FASD were more vulnerable to leading questions, negative feedback and evidenced significantly higher suggestibility, immediately and after 1 week. A significant correlation was found between immediate and repeat suggestibility at 1‐week follow‐up. Poorer memory recall, lower intelligence quotient and higher impulsivity were also observed in the FASD population. The results indicate the importance for the CJS to establish whether suspects, witnesses, and victims of crimes may have been impacted by prenatal alcohol exposure since this is a significant source of vulnerability that could lead to false confessions or miscarriage of justice.

The Role of Coping Strategies in Children’s Repeated Suggestive Interviews

“…These results are in line with other studies that have demonstrated how reasoning and focusing strategies, such as task-oriented, allow us to detect and reject misleading information [38,42].…”

“…A recent study verified the impact of executive functions on interrogative suggestibility in a group of adolescents, highlighting how the lack of control, low monitoring of distorting and misleading sources and low general executive functions lead to higher Shift scores [38]. In other words, adolescents with low executive functions tend to change their responses more after receiving negative feedback.…”

“…This could also be one of the reasons why children are more suggestible than adolescents. Executive functions interact with other psychological factors such as anxiety, social pressure and avoidance, which increase a negative and stressful perception of the interrogative suggestibility situation [2,38]. These factors tend to determine greater vulnerability, especially to the effect of negative feedback.…”

“…Avoidance coping has a predictive effect on the failure levels of both scales, leading to a greater acceptance of the misleading questions (see Table 2). Furthermore, the avoidance strategy led to a reduction in the protective effect given by the increase in age, which is normally associated with a greater degree of maturity of the cognitive functions that allow one to reject suggestive questions [38].…”

“…The effect of social pressure given by negative criticism also affects the Failure 2 score, which increases the levels of uncertainty that do not seem to be well managed by avoidance coping. According to Gilbert and colleagues [38], managing negative feedback requires more monitoring and self-control skills, which may not be guaranteed by avoidance and/or inactive coping strategies [41,42].…”