The role of repeated interviewing in children's responses to cross‐examination‐style questioning

Abstract

The negative effect of cross-examination-style questioning on children's accuracy is likely to be due to the complex and credibility-challenging questions that characterize the interview. Given that cross-examination occurs after at least one prior interview, however, it is equally possible that repeated interviewing per se impairs children's accuracy, and that the questions asked have little bearing on children's responses. To examine this issue, 5- and 6-year-old children (n= 82) and 9- and 10-year-old children (n= 103) took part in a surprise event and were then interviewed using an analogue of direct examination. Either 1 week or 6 months later, half of the children were re-interviewed with an analogue of cross-examination designed to challenge their direct examination responses. Remaining children were re-interviewed with the same questions that were asked during direct examination. Children's accuracy decreased following their second interview, irrespective of age or delay; however, delay particularly impacted younger children's second interview performance. Children's accuracy was most impaired following a cross-examination-style interview. Overall, cross-examination-style questioning appears to be particularly detrimental to obtaining accurate event reports from children.

Preparing children for cross-examination: do the practice questions matter?

“…Consistent with our predictions, and with earlier studies (O'Neill & Zajac, 2013b;Righarts et al, 2013), children in the two preparation conditions made fewer changes to their original responsesand exhibited a smaller decrease in accuracy when faced with the challenge questionsthan children who were not prepared. Furthermore, the intervention facilitated children's accuracy whether or not the challenges presented during the preparation session were the same as those presented during cross-examination.…”

“…When we simply repeated the yes/no questions from the direct-examination interview during the cross-examination interview, there was a small decrease in accuracy for children who did not receive preparationa finding consistent with previous studies using the same paradigm O'Neill & Zajac, 2013b). The repetition of closed questions can elicit response changes that increase error rates (Howie et al, 2009(Howie et al, , 2012Krähenbühl et al, 2009;O'Neill & Zajac, 2013b), possibly because repetition signals to the child that the interviewer was not satisfied with the original response (Howie et al, 2009(Howie et al, , 2012Lyon, 2002).…”

“…To date, however, these programmes have generally been limited to familiarising children with the courtroom environment and addressing their specific queries (Davies et al, 2004). Given that cross-examination questioning exerts a negative effect on children's accuracy even when they are questioned in familiar environments (O'Neill & Zajac, 2013b;Righarts et al, 2014;, it seems unlikely that familiarisation on its own would be sufficient to facilitate accuracy.…”

“…The repetition of closed questions can elicit response changes that increase error rates (Howie et al, 2009(Howie et al, , 2012Krähenbühl et al, 2009;O'Neill & Zajac, 2013b), possibly because repetition signals to the child that the interviewer was not satisfied with the original response (Howie et al, 2009(Howie et al, , 2012Lyon, 2002).…”

Acknowledging Children’s Voice and Participation in Family Courts: Criteria that Guide Western Australian Court Consultants

“…The subject of multiple interviewing children is addressed by the UNCRC (Lansdown, 2011;O'Neill & Zajac, 2013) which acknowledges that "hearing a child's voice" is a difficult process that can have a traumatic impact on the child and emphasises the importance of avoiding unnecessarily reinterviewing children. Family Consultants also consider how much weight the court might give to the child's views to avoid the child being interviewed and then not listened to and feeling let down.…”