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

Abstract

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.

Interviewing alleged victims with mild and moderate intellectual disabilities and autism: A field study of police‐investigated cases of physical and sexual abuse in a Norwegian national sample

“…The quality of the interview techniques used in investigative interviews of PWID and PWA is therefore frequently referred to as a challenge in discussions of witness credibility. Additionally, studies have shown a relationship between the question types used and the accuracy of the witness account, for both PWID (Agnew and Powell 2004;Ternes and Yuille 2008;Gudjonsson and Joyce 2011;Brown and Lamb 2015;Brown et al 2017;Lamb et al 2018b;Morrison et al 2019) and PWA (Maras and Bowler 2014;Almeida et al 2018). The majority of these studies have, however, been conducted with children with or without ID in experimental settings (e.g.…”

“…The majority of these studies have, however, been conducted with children with or without ID in experimental settings (e.g. watching staged events or videos followed by an interview) (Agnew and Powell 2004;Brown et al 2017;Almeida et al 2018;Lamb et al 2018b). Some studies have examined interviews of adults with ID and autism in an experimental setting.…”

“…Best-practice recommendations for investigative interviewing are based on studies examining question types and interview protocols that are developed to enhance interview quality in investigative interviews. Studies and protocols generally recommend the use of both open-ended and directive questions (Brown et al 2017;Almeida et al 2018;Lamb et al 2018b). Open-ended questions (e.g.…”

“…Open-ended questions (e.g. 'tell me what happened') facilitate free narratives, which improves witness credibility and the accuracy of the account (Agnew and Powell 2004;Brown et al 2017). Studies furthermore indicate that PWID and PWA disclose more information when responding to directive questions (e.g.…”

“…compared with open-ended questions (Agnew and Powell 2004;Almeida et al 2018). This seems to be even more evident for individuals with moderate ID (Brown et al 2012(Brown et al , 2017. Reliance on open-ended and directive questions is a core recommendation in protocols such as the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Protocol (NICHD) (Lamb 1996), Achieving Best Evidence (ABE) (Home Office 2011) and the Norwegian Sequential Interview Model (SI) (Langballe and Davik 2017).…”