Interviewer demeanor in forensic interviews of children

Teoh, Yee-San; Lamb, Michael E.

doi:10.1080/1068316x.2011.614610

Cited by 35 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Three field studies (Hershkowitz, 2009;Ruddock, 2006;Teoh & Lamb, 2013) have shown that interviewer supportiveness was positively correlated with the informativeness of young witnesses, while Lewy et al (2015) found an association between unsupportiveness and impaired informativeness. Two of these studies (Hershkowitz, 2009;Teoh & Lamb, 2013) also showed a positive correlation between enhanced support and the informativeness of less cooperative children. In all, both in the laboratory and in the field, support has been associated with enhanced performance by young interviewees, whether or not they were reluctant to cooperate.…”

Section: Reluctant Children and Interviewer Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

Is interviewer support associated with the reduced reluctance and enhanced informativeness of alleged child abuse victims?

Blasbalg¹,

Hershkowitz²,

Lamb³

et al. 2019

Law and Human Behavior

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Child maltreatment victims are often reluctant to report abuse when formally interviewed. Evidence-based guidelines like the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Standard Investigative Interview Protocol do not adequately address such reluctance because they are focused on cognitive rather than socio-emotional strategies. The present study was designed to determine whether the Revised NICHD Protocol, which emphasizes supportive interviewing more than the Standard Protocol does, might predict increases in the overall informativeness and reductions in the reluctance of alleged victims. A total of 254 interviews, 166 using the Revised Protocol and 88 using the Standard Protocol, were conducted with 4.06-to 13.98-year-old children (M = 9.20, SD = 2.49) who disclosed multiple incidents of physical abuse by their parents and were thus expected to be more reluctant than victims of extrafamilial abuse. We coded indices of interviewer support and question types, children's reluctance, and informativeness in each utterance during the substantive phases of the interviews. The Revised Protocol was associated with better interviewer support and questioning as well as reduced reluctance and increased informativeness on the part of the children. These findings document the value of training interviewers to attend to the socio-emotional needs of suspected abuse victims during investigative interviews.

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Section: Reluctant Children and Interviewer Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

Is interviewer support associated with the reduced reluctance and enhanced informativeness of alleged child abuse victims?

Blasbalg¹,

Hershkowitz²,

Lamb³

et al. 2019

Law and Human Behavior

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show abstract

“…Children's reluctance is here operationalized as a behavior or a verbal attitude exhibited by the child who demonstrates a direct or an indirect refusal to respond to a question asked by the interviewer or a degree of unwillingness to participate in the interview process. This definition was initially based on the work done on client resistance in the field of psychotherapy and is consistent with classical characterizations of how resistance manifests itself in therapy (e.g., Freud, 1946;Strean, 1990). The definition was modified to correspond to how a child's reluctance manifests itself in the context of forensic interviews.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Impact of interviewers’ supportive comments and children's reluctance to cooperate during sexual abuse disclosure

Lewy

Cyr

Dion

2015

Child Abuse & Neglect

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“…Such insensitivity neglected the children's emotional needs and tended to prompt abbreviated accounts of abuse (Orbach, Shiloach, & Lamb, ). In light of these findings, researchers have recommended that interviewers should be more, rather than less, supportive of uncooperative children (Hershkowitz et al, ; Teoh & Lamb, ) and have started testing guidelines designed to promote interviewer support (Anderson, Anderson, & Gilgun, ; Hershkowitz et al, , ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in Interviewers' Use of Supportive Techniques during the Revised Protocol Training

Hershkowitz

Ahern

Lamb

et al. 2017

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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Although many children are reluctant to disclose abuse due to embarrassment, fear, and the anticipation of negative consequences, researchers have only recently begun to examine whether forensic interviewers can be trained to manage children's reluctance. In this study, the supportiveness of 53 experienced interviewers was assessed in their interviews with 321 3-to 14-yearold alleged victims, each conducted during the course of training to use the Revised Protocol (RP). The use of support increased, especially between levels evident at baseline and in the last two interviews assessed. Over time, instances of inadequate support and insensitivity to children's reluctance became less common. Younger children received proportionally more support, including inadequate support, than older children. The RP training did not affect the extensive use of free recall-based questions. Findings highlight the benefits of continued supervision and training.

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Interviewer demeanor in forensic interviews of children

Cited by 35 publications

References 19 publications

Is interviewer support associated with the reduced reluctance and enhanced informativeness of alleged child abuse victims?

Is interviewer support associated with the reduced reluctance and enhanced informativeness of alleged child abuse victims?

Impact of interviewers’ supportive comments and children's reluctance to cooperate during sexual abuse disclosure

Changes in Interviewers' Use of Supportive Techniques during the Revised Protocol Training

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