Support and Reluctance in the Pre‐substantive Phase of Alleged Child Abuse Victim Investigative Interviews: Revised versus Standard NICHD Protocols

Abstract

Children's unwillingness to report abuse places them at risk for re-victimization, and interviewers who do not respond sensitively to that unwillingness may increase the likelihood that victims will not disclose abuse. Interviewer support and children's reluctance were examined on a turn-by-turn basis using sequential analyses in 199 forensic interviews of 3- to 13-year-olds who alleged maltreatment. Half of the children were interviewed using the Revised Protocol that emphasized rapport-building (RP), the others using the Standard National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Protocol (SP). When using the RP, interviewers provided proportionally more support than when using the SP, but even when using the RP they did not specifically provide support when children expressed reluctance. The RP promoted immediate cooperation when reluctant utterances were met with support, however, suggesting that supportive statements were valuable. The findings enhance our understanding of children's willingness to participate in investigative interviews and the means through which interviewers can foster the comfort and well-being of young witnesses.

Children's Uncertain Responses when Testifying about Alleged Sexual Abuse in Scottish Courts

“…Most studies examining reluctance in child investigative interviews have measured children's reluctance by calculating how often children (whose abuse had been verified independently) denied abuse, resisted answering questions, or omitted information (e.g., Ahern et al, ; Hershkowitz, ; Hershkowitz, Lamb, Katz, & Malloy, ; Hershkowitz et al, , ). In all such studies, omissions were the most common type of reluctant utterance; these included various uncertain responses (e.g., don't know/don't remember, non‐responses/silence).…”

“…Children who did not disclose abuse that had been independently corroborated expressed more reluctance (including omissions) than children who did disclose abuse (Hershkowitz et al, , ). Furthermore, enhanced interviewer supportiveness and rapport‐building resulted in markedly lower levels of reluctance, particularly omissions (Ahern et al, ; Hershkowitz et al, ). These studies suggested that it may sometimes be reasonable to view uncertain responses as indices of reluctance on the part of children motivated not to disclose their experiences.…”

“…Unlike Hershkowitz and colleagues, who were concerned primarily with the dynamics of interviews with children who were reluctant to disclose abuse (Ahern et al, ; Hershkowitz, ; Hershkowitz et al, , , ), other researchers have evaluated children's “don't know” responses differently in investigative interviews. Earhart et al () examined 76 forensic interviews with allegedly abused 4‐ to 13‐ year‐olds and found that, even though the “don't know” ground rule was presented in 94% of the interviews, an average of only seven “don't know” responses were identified in each interview, constituting only 6% of children's substantive responses – half the proportion reported by Hershkowitz et al ().…”

The NICHD Protocol: Guide to Follow Recommended Investigative Interview Practices at the Barnahus?

“…Research has shown that disclosure rates have proved to be higher when children are formally interviewed, compared to adults with childhood histories of child sexual abuse, reporting the abuse in retrospective studies, even if there is great variation between different studies (London et al 2008). This suggests that the skills of the interviewer and how to overcome a child's reluctance may be very important, and recent studies have just started to investigate the impact of enhanced socioemotional support in the interview setting when children exhibit reluctance when interviewed (Ahern et al 2014;Hershkowitz et al 2013). It seems that interviewer support is particularly important when interviewing children unwilling to talk (Hershkowitz et al 2006).…”

“…This in turn may allow them to use cognitive resources to make a memory search and/ or focus on the interviewer's questions (Goodman et al 2014;Quas et al 2004;Rush et al 2014). The RP particularly highlights the importance of interviewers responding more sensitively and using supportive comments with reluctant children (Ahern et al 2014). In summary, the high standards of the Barnahus that take the abilities, vulnerabilities and needs of child witnesses into account, combined with the use of RP in interviewing, may be very important in enhancing the disclosure rates of maltreated children.…”