The Abilities of Children With Mental Retardation to Remember Personal Experiences: Implications for Testimony

Michel, Margaret K.; Gordon, Betty N.; Ornstein, Peter A.; Simpson, Mary Ann

doi:10.1207/s15374424jccp2903_16

Cited by 54 publications

(73 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…When looking at general intelligence, results of studies indicate that the amount of information produced by children with mental retardation during open-ended recall is often lower than that produced by children of the same age with typical intellectual development (Henry & Gudjonsson, 2003Michel, Gordon, Ornstein, & Simpson, 2000).…”

Section: Intelligence and Verbal Abilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, conducting proper interviews is crucial. When interviewing children with intellectual difficulties, it is usually recommended to use open-ended questions (recall memory probes) to elicit details (Gordon & Shroeder, 1995;Michel et al, 2000). However, many forensic interviewers frequently use close-ended and suggestive questions (recognition memory probes; Orbach, Hershkowitz, Lamb, Sternberg, Esplin, & Horowitz, 2000;Sternberg et al, 1996Sternberg et al, , 1997 even when they are trained not to do so (Aldridge & Cameron, investigative protocol that applies recommended strategies to enhance retrieval of complete, informative, and accurate accounts of alleged incidents by young victim/witnesses into operational guidelines (Orbach, Hershkowitz, Lamb, Sternberg, Esplin, & Horowitz, 2000).…”

Section: Interview Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, freely recalled information is likely to be more accurate than information retrieved from recognition memory (Pipe, Lamb, Orbach, & Esplin, 2004;Poole & Lamb, 1998). Many studies have shown that information provided in response to open-ended questions is more accurate than information obtained from any other type of question (e.g., Craig, Scheibe, Raskin, Kircher, & Dodd, 1999;Goodman & Aman, 1990;Lamb & Fauchier, 2001;, even for children with intellectual difficulties (Henry & Gudjonsson, 1999Michel et al, 2000). In addition, the pre-substantive phase of the NICHD protocol provides children with practice in providing details from memory.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The Use of the NICHD Protocol to Enhance the Quantity of Details Obtained from Children with Low Verbal Abilities in Investigative Interviews: A Pilot Study

Dion

Cyr

2008

Journal of Child Sexual Abuse

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This study explored the impact of the NICHD protocol to enhance the quantity and content of details reported by children with low verbal abilities. Thirty-four children aged from 6 to 14 were interviewed following their experience of sexual abuse. Half the interviews were conducted using the NICHD protocol. Results indicate that NICHD interviews contained more open-ended prompts and more details overall. Open-ended invitations yielded significantly more detailed responses than did close-ended questions for both children with low and average verbal abilities.Although children with low verbal abilities provided fewer details than children with average verbal abilities, the NICHD protocol helped them provide detailed responses containing the core elements of the sexual abuse. Conducting investigative interviews with child victims of sexual abuse is a complex task for an interviewer, yet is even more challenging with children with intellectual difficulties. For example, results of analog studies (Henry & Gudjonsson, 1999) and a field study (Dion, Cyr, Richard, & McDuff, 2006) indicate that children with intellectual disabilities are likely to provide fewer details when asked to recall an event. Above all cognitive abilities, verbal skills appear to be the most related to children's recall performance (Brown & Pipe, 2003;Chae & Ceci, 2005;Dion et al.). These results are of particular importance considering that children with mental retardation or speech and language difficulties are respectively 4 and almost 3 times more likely to be sexually abused than children without disabilities (Sullivan & Knutson, 2000).It is therefore necessary to evaluate interview techniques that might be useful in helping these children talk about their abuse. The objective of the present study is to explore the impact of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) protocol to enhance details given by children with low verbal abilities (LVA) and to document any differences in response to distinct types of questions. Intelligence and Verbal AbilitiesMany researchers have explored intelligence in relation to children's abilities to recount an event in various settings, such as a staged event (e.g., Brown & Pipe, 2003;Chae & Ceci, 2005), a video (Henry & Gudjonsson, 2004), or sexual abuse (Dion et al., 2006). When looking at general intelligence, results of studies indicate that the amount of information produced by children with mental retardation during open-ended recall is often lower than that produced by children of the same age with typical intellectual development (Henry & Gudjonsson, 2003Michel, Gordon, Ornstein, & Simpson, 2000).However, inconsistent results are found when using different measures of intelligence (e.g., receptive language, expressive language, visual-motor coordination) to explore the relationship between more specific cognitive abilities (e.g., verbal and nonverbal abilities) and recall. Four explanations are possible for these conflicting results, including: (a) verbal intelligence ...

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Section: Intelligence and Verbal Abilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Interview Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Use of the NICHD Protocol to Enhance the Quantity of Details Obtained from Children with Low Verbal Abilities in Investigative Interviews: A Pilot Study

Dion

Cyr

2008

Journal of Child Sexual Abuse

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“…peers matched for mental age-MA), there are relatively few differences in performance (Gordon et al, 1994;Henry & Gudjonsson, 1999Michel, Gordon, Ornstein, & Simpson, 2000; although see Agnew & Powell, 2004, for differing results).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual and developmental differences in eyewitness recall and suggestibility in children with intellectual disabilities

Henry

Gudjónsson

2006

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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This study examined two key issues: (1) whether there were developmental improvements in eyewitness memory performance for children with intellectual disabilities (ID); and (2) whether standardised measures of cognitive ability and suggestibility would relate to eyewitness recall and suggestibility. Children with ID and age-matched controls (ages 8/9 and 12 years) watched a video of a crime and were asked a range of open-ended and specific questions about the event in a subsequent interview. Free recall increased between the two age levels for children with and without ID, but at a faster rate for those without ID. For other question types, differences in performance between children with and without ID were far more marked than age differences. Standardised measures of interrogative suggestibility (Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale, GSS), verbal IQ, non-verbal IQ, mental age and speed of information processing were related to eyewitness performance. In particular, higher eyewitness recall scores (free recall, non-leading specific questions) were related to higher scores on the standardised GSS free recall measure; and higher eyewitness suggestibility scores were related to higher scores on the standardised GSS suggestibility measures. Mental age was a better predictor of performance on a range of eyewitness memory question types than verbal or nonverbal IQ; and speed of information processing showed some relationships with eyewitness performance.

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“…They are also more suggestible, although their responses to free recall questions tend to be accurate . This means that the severity of disability influences how children and youths with IDs perform, but overall, the accuracy of their accounts has been described as comparable to that of mental-age-matched TD peers (Fowler 1998;Henry and Gudjonsson 1999;Iarocci and Burack 1998;Michel et al 2000;Zigler 1969). However, children and youths with IDs may change their responses when option-posing and suggestive questions are repeated in real forensic interviews ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The quality of details when children and youths with intellectual disabilities are interviewed about their abuse experiences

Cederborg¹,

Hultman²,

Rooy

2012

Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research

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The question for this study was to further understand how children and youths with intellectual disabilities (IDs) provide central and peripheral details when interviewed about their abuse experiences. Through a quantitative method we examined police officers' first formal investigative interviews with 32 children and youths with IDs. We analyzed the details they reported about abuse in relation to types of questions asked. The findings showed that few open-ended invitations were used and that a large number of option-posing questions were asked. The children and youths tended to agree with option-posing and suggestive statements but were nonetheless able to report important information about their abuse experiences without the 'help' from these potentially contaminating questions. The results of this study are limited because of the selective nature of the sample and that we did not have access to complete information about the participants specific diagnosis. Although it shows that police officers need to provide children and youths with IDs greater opportunities to report details using open-ended invitations. If they do not develop their responses when asked open-ended invitations they may be asked open directive questions to facilitate the elicitation of both central and peripheral information.

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The Abilities of Children With Mental Retardation to Remember Personal Experiences: Implications for Testimony

Cited by 54 publications

References 23 publications

The Use of the NICHD Protocol to Enhance the Quantity of Details Obtained from Children with Low Verbal Abilities in Investigative Interviews: A Pilot Study

The Use of the NICHD Protocol to Enhance the Quantity of Details Obtained from Children with Low Verbal Abilities in Investigative Interviews: A Pilot Study

Individual and developmental differences in eyewitness recall and suggestibility in children with intellectual disabilities

The quality of details when children and youths with intellectual disabilities are interviewed about their abuse experiences

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