- Email: [email protected]
Enhancing children’s narratives in investigative interviews
Child Abuse & Neglect, Vol. 24, No. 12, pp. 1631–1648, 2000 Copyright © 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0145-2134/00/$–see front matter
Pergamon
PII S0145-2134(00)00207-6
SPOTLIGHT ON PRACTICE
ENHANCING CHILDREN’S NARRATIVES IN INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEWS YAEL ORBACH
AND
MICHAEL E. LAMB
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, MD, USA
ABSTRACT Objective: To illustrate the amount of detail that can be elicited from alleged abuse victims using open-ended prompts by closely examining forensic interviews of a 5-year-old and a 15-year-old. Method: Interview prompts in the substantive sections of two forensic interviews were characterized as invitations, cued invitations, directive or option-posing, and the number of details they each elicited was tabulated. Results: In both interviews, open-ended prompts predominated and were distributed throughout the substantive phases of the interviews. Most of the information obtained was elicited using open-ended prompts, which remained equivalently effective throughout the interviews. Reconstruction of the children’s accounts illustrated how successive prompts continued to elicit information. Conclusion: Well-framed open-ended prompts, including those that use details provided by the child as cues, elicit narrative accounts from children of all ages. Because such information is more likely to be accurate, investigators are urged to rely more extensively on open-ended prompts. © 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. Key Words—Investigative interviews, Narrative enhancement, Open-ended questions, Recall memory.
INTRODUCTION THE RICHNESS AND accuracy of children’s accounts of their experiences are greatly influenced by the manner in which their memories are tapped (Lamb, Sternberg, Orbach, Hershkowitz, & Esplin, 1999). Because open-ended questions reliably elicit more detailed and more accurate responses than more focused and specific prompts do (e.g., Dale, Loftus, & Rathbun, 1978; Dent, 1986; Dent & Stephenson, 1979; Goodman & Aman, 1990; Hutcheson, Baxter, Telfer, & Warden, 1995; Oates & Shrimpton, 1991), experts and professional groups have recommended that forensic interviewers rely as much as possible on such open-ended prompts (American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children [APSAC], 1990; Bull, 1992, 1995; Jones, 1992; Lamb, Sternberg, & Esplin, 1998; Lamb et al., 1999; Memorandum of Good Practice, 1992; Milne & Bull, 1999; Poole & Lamb, 1998; Saywitz & Goodman, 1996; Walker & Warren, 1995; Yuille, Hunter, Joffe, & Zaparniuk, 1993). Recall responses to open-ended prompts tend to be incomplete, however, and
Received for publication January 20, 2000; final revision received April 25, 2000; accepted April 26, 2000. Requests for reprints should be sent to Michael E. Lamb, Section on Social and Emotional Development, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 9190 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20892. 1631
1632
Y. Orbach and M. E. Lamb
because investigators seldom ask very many open-ended questions in the course of their interviews, it has not been possible to determine whether multiple open-ended questions, framed judiciously, permit investigators to obtain more complete accounts. The present qualitative case study was designed to illustrate the effectiveness of open-ended questions in this regard. In both laboratory-analog and field settings, recall memory prompts tend to elicit longer, more informative, and more accurate (when this can be assessed) responses than recognition memory prompts do (Dale et al., 1978; Dent, 1982, 1986; Dent & Stephenson, 1979; Goodman & Aman, 1990; Hershkowitz, Lamb, Sternberg, & Esplin, 1997; Hutcheson et al., 1995; Lamb & Fauchier, in press; Lamb, Hershkowitz, Sternberg, Esplin, et al., 1996; Leichtman & Ceci, 1995; Oates & Shrimpton, 1991; O’Callaghan & D’Arcy, 1989; Orbach & Lamb, 1999; Peterson & Biggs, 1997; Peterson, Dowden, & Tobin, 1999; Price & Goodman, 1990; Saywitz, Goodman, Nicholas, & Moan, 1991; Sternberg et al., 1996; Wood et al., 1998). Option-posing, “Yes/No,” and suggestive interviewer utterances are more likely to elicit inaccurate information, perhaps because they probe for information of which the child is unsure or implicitly encourage children to acquiesce to suggested information and guess which response is expected (Goodman & Aman, 1990; Poole & White, 1993). Despite widespread agreement regarding the superiority of open-ended prompts, however, focused questions continue to characterize forensic interviews in Israel, Sweden, the United States, and the United Kingdom (Cederborg, Orbach, Sternberg, & Lamb, 2000; Craig, Sheibe, Kircher, Raskin, & Dodd, 1999; Davies, Westcott, & Horan, 2000; Lamb, Hershkowitz, Sternberg, Boat, & Everson, 1996; Lamb, Hershkowitz, Sternberg, Esplin, et al., 1996; Sternberg et al., 1996; Sternberg, Lamb, Davies, & Westcott, in press; Stockdale, 1996; Walker & Hunt, 1998). The adverse effects of option-posing and suggestive interview techniques are exaggerated when they occur early in the interview and when the children being questioned are very young. Thus, reliance on open-ended questions during the early substantive stages of investigative interviews, before the interviewer introduces any information, may not only yield greater amounts of uncontaminated information but also reduce acquiescence to misleading information introduced later in the interview (Warren & Lane, 1995). Saywitz and Goodman (1996) illustrated the negative effects of option-posing, misleading, and suggestive questions when introduced prior to open-ended utterances, and similar effects on the accuracy of free-recall accounts have been described by other researchers (Goodman & Aman, 1990; Leichtman & Ceci, 1995; Memon, Holley, Wark, Bull, & Ko¨hnken, 1996; Tobey & Goodman, 1992). When focused questions are needed to explore forensically crucial information that has not been disclosed spontaneously, therefore, experts recommend that these prompts be delayed until as late as possible in the interview. In practice, however, many interviewers introduce option-posing and suggestive questions very early in the interview—sometimes as the very first utterance— contaminating all subsequent information (Cederborg et al., 2000). Such practices underscore the importance of developing strategies to maximize the effectiveness and implementation of open-ended interview techniques. Both laboratory and field studies have been designed to evaluate narrative retrieval techniques (Bull, 1995; Fisher & McCauley, 1995; Orbach et al., 2000; Saywitz, Geiselman, & Bornstein, 1992; Saywitz & Goodman, 1996; Saywitz & Snyder, 1993, 1996; Saywitz, Snyder, & Lamphear, 1996; Sternberg, Lamb, Esplin, & Baradaran, 1999; Sternberg, Lamb, Esplin, Orbach, & Hershkowitz, in press; Sternberg et al., 1997). Thus, contextual cueing via mental context reinstatement facilitates recall in both laboratory (for a review, see Malpass, 1996) and forensic settings (Hershkowitz, Orbach, Lamb, Sternberg, & Horowitz, in press) and has been incorporated into the Cognitive Interview for children (Geiselman & Fisher, 1989; Geiselman & Padilla, 1988; Memon, Wark, Bull, & Ko¨hnken, 1997; Milne, Bull, Ko¨hnken, & Memon, 1995). Hershkowitz and her colleagues (in press) found that alleged abuse victims provided proportionally more details in response to open-ended utterances when the context was reinstated mentally, although mental context reinstatement had no significant effect on the total amount of information elicited.
Narrative enhancement
1633
The narrative elaboration technique (Saywitz, Nathanson, & Snyder, 1993; Saywitz & Snyder, 1993, 1996; Saywitz et al., 1992, 1996) involves providing visual cues to symbolize four types of information (events, participants, actions, and setting) and is associated with increases in the amount of information obtained in laboratory analog studies. Unfortunately, the narrative elaboration technique has not been studied in forensic settings, where the timing of the cues relative to the disclosure of relevant information would affect their suggestiveness and thus their suitability. When children are trained to respond to open-ended prompts in forensic contexts, however, they later produce more information from recall memory when prompted to “tell everything” about the alleged abuse (Sternberg et al., 1997). As a result, a fully structured investigative protocol (the NICHD Investigative Protocol) was developed to promote exhaustive open-ended questioning before interviewers introduce focused questions (Orbach et al., 2000). The NICHD Investigative Protocol provides pre-substantive training in three open-ended narrative-elaboration techniques. First, child witnesses are prompted to provide detailed accounts of neutral experienced events, using a variety of open-ended invitations (e.g., general invitations [“Tell me everything that happened”], follow-up invitations, prompting for more information [“Then what happened?” or “Tell me more about that”], and refocusing invitations [“Think back to the time you were there and tell me everything that happened”]). Second, details reported by the child are used as contextual cues and paired with open-ended invitations to direct the focus non-suggestively in the form of cued invitations (e.g., “You mentioned [something mentioned by the child]; tell me everything about that.”). Third, temporal cues are used in a similar way (e.g., “You mentioned [a point in time (or action) mentioned by the child]; tell me what happened just before/after that,” or “Tell me what happened from [a point in time mentioned by the child] until [another point in time mentioned by the child]”). Since the last two narrative enhancing techniques rely on material provided by the child, they involve providing cues to access otherwise inaccessible memory traces (Tulving, 1983) while avoiding the suggestiveness of references to undisclosed information. These two techniques operate like the “zooming” of a camera, focusing on one issue at a time and magnifying it to retrieve details that are otherwise inaccessible. Whereas photographic magnification is externally controlled, however, the ideal memory search should be triggered by the interviewer’s eliciting question but conducted by the child. The goal of the present case report is to illustrate how effectively these open-ended techniques foster free-recall narrative elaboration. Quantitative documentation of their effectiveness was published recently in this journal (Orbach et al., 2000) and the qualitative examination reported here is designed to provided a richer documentation of the phenomena. METHOD Two investigative interviews were selected for illustrative purposes. Both interviews closely followed the NICHD Investigative Protocol for interviewing child witnesses (Orbach et al., 2000) and were conducted by experienced police detectives in the Western United States. Each of the children interviewed, a 5-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl, alleged a single incident of sexual abuse (skin touch/fondling and vaginal penetration, respectively) and each was questioned only once (i.e., in the interview we examined). The boy was interviewed 8 months after the alleged incident, and the girl was interviewed more than a year after the alleged rape. Both children spontaneously initiated the disclosure (i.e., during the pre-substantive phase), making it unnecessary for the investigator to initiate recollection of the relevant event. In each case, the initial disclosure was extremely brief (“suspect-action-victim”) and was followed by the interviewer’s general invitation “Tell me everything about that.” A content analysis of the interview involved: (1) a qualitative analysis of the utterances with which the investigator elicited information, (2) a quantitative analysis of the victim’s accounts, assessing the number of informative “details” about
1634
Y. Orbach and M. E. Lamb
the reported incident, (3) a qualitative categorization of the reported details as either “central” (focused on the sexual allegation) or “peripheral” (descriptive of the investigated incident), and finally, (4) a sequential reconstruction of the children’s accounts, inserting informative details provided in several narratives into the appropriate temporal context. Data Coding Video-recordings of both interviews were transcribed and checked to ensure their completeness and accuracy. Two raters then categorized and tabulated the interviewers’ utterance types and the number of details conveyed in the children’s statements. Utterances were defined as “turns” in the discourse or conversation, and were classified into two broad categories, open-ended and focused. Open-ended utterances consist of “invitations” to provide spontaneous information about experienced events, without any interviewer input or constraints. Focused utterances are further classified into categorical recall prompts (i.e., directive) and recognition prompts (i.e., option-posing and suggestive utterances). For purposes of these ratings, we did not distinguish between questions and statements. Interviewer utterances during the portion of the investigative interviews concerned with substantive issues were placed in one of the following categories: 1. Invitations. Utterances (including questions, statements, or imperatives) prompting free-recall responses from the child. General invitations do not delimit the child’s focus except in a general way (e.g., “Tell me everything that happened”) whereas cued invitations use details disclosed by the child as contextual cues to prompt further elaboration (e.g., “You mentioned that he touched you. Tell me everything about the touching”). 2. Directive utterances. These refocus the child’s attention on details or aspects of the alleged incident that the child has already mentioned and, using Wh-questions, they provide categories for requesting additional information (categorical recall). 3. Option-posing utterances. These focus the child’s attention on aspects related to the alleged incident that the child has not previously mentioned, asking the child to affirm, negate, or select an investigator-given option (reflecting the investigator’s hypothesis) using recognition memory processes, without implying that a particular response is expected. 4. Suggestive utterances. These are stated in such a way that the interviewer strongly communicates what response is expected (e.g., “He forced you to do that, didn’t he?”) OR they assume details that have not been revealed by the child (e.g., Child: “We laid on the sofa.” Interviewer: “He laid on you or you laid on him?”). Interviewer utterances not related to the alleged incident under investigation (e.g., references to the interviewer’s and child’s roles) interjected within the substantive portion of the interview were coded as “Non-substantive.” Any incident-related information provided by children following such utterances was coded as “spontaneous” because it was provided spontaneously by the children rather than in response to an information-eliciting prompt. Details were defined as words or phrases identifying or describing individuals, objects, or events (including actions) which are integrally related to the investigated incident (Yuille & Cutshall, 1986, 1989; Lamb, Hershkowitz, Sternberg, Esplin, et al., 1996). Details were only counted when they were new and added to the understanding of the target incidents. As a result, restatements were not counted. Central details were defined as allegation-specific details (plot-related, specifying the outline of the sexual event; e.g., sexual actions or body parts, sexual verbal content), whereas peripheral details were defined as descriptive details about the incident, which were not allegationspecific or plot related (e.g., non-sexual actions or body parts, non-sexual verbal content). Content analyses of the children’s responses focused on: (1) the number of new informative details about the reported incidents; (2) the utterance types with which the investigators elicited each of the responses; and (3) the numbers of central and peripheral details reported.
Narrative enhancement
1635
Figure 1. Proportion of utterance types in the different quarters of the interview.
Before coding transcripts for the study, two raters were trained on an independent set of transcripts until they agreed on the identification of at least 98% of the details and utterance types. In the present study, both transcripts were independently coded by both coders to ensure reliability. Disagreements were discussed to consensus. ILLUSTRATIONS Appendices I and II reproduce the entire substantive portions of the two interviews under examination. The pre-substantive introductions, rapport-building sequences, explanations of ground rules, non-substantive digressions within the substantive phase, and the post-substantive
1636
Y. Orbach and M. E. Lamb
Figure 2. Proportion of details elicited using the different utterance types in the different quarters of the interview.
closing segments are not reproduced. As readers can see, open-ended utterances predominated in both interviews, with 55% and 72.5% of the interviewer prompts being open-ended in the interviews of the 15- and 5-year-olds, respectively. In both, open-ended prompts were distributed throughout the substantive phase of the interview, option-posing prompts were introduced later in the interview, and suggestive utterances were totally eliminated (see Figure 1). The high quality of both interviews was reflected in the large number and high proportion of informative details provided by each of the children in response to open-ended rather than focused questions (466 versus 38 and 162 versus 12 and 92.5% versus 7.5% and 94.2% versus 5.8% in the older and the younger child, respectively). The 15-year-old girl provided over 2.4 times the total number of details provided by the 5-year-old boy (Ms ⫽ 507 and 208, respectively) and 7.4 times the number of details in response to the first invitation (104 versus 14 details, respectively), but the proportions of details elicited in response to open-ended utterances (91.9% and 77.9%, respec-
Narrative enhancement
1637
Figure 3. Proportion of central and peripheral details per utterance type.
tively), the proportion of free-recall central details elicited in response to open-ended utterances (42.2% and 56.7%, respectively) and the proportion of free-recall central details elicited in response to the first invitation (8.5% and 6.7%, respectively) were similar in the two interviews. In both interviews, follow-up invitations elicited additional information and a substantial proportion of the details were provided before the first option-posing question (see Figure 1 and Figure 2). Free-recall narratives, containing new informative details, were distributed throughout the substantive phase of the interview so that details provided in later narratives, elicited using refocusing open-ended techniques, supplemented the children’s more skeletal initial narratives (see Figure 2). The proportion of details elicited using cued invitations (60.5% and 60.6% in the older and younger child, respectively) is substantially greater than the proportion of details elicited using general invitations (31.4% and 17.3%, respectively) even though cued invitations were introduced later in the interview, when much information had already been retrieved in response to earlier
1638
Y. Orbach and M. E. Lamb
Figure 4. Proportion of invitation-elicited details in each narrative that were central or peripheral (15-year-old girl).
invitations. Moreover, although the mean number of details per general invitation was higher than the mean number of details per cued invitation, cued invitations elicited proportionally more central details than general invitations did in both cases (see Figure 3) perhaps because cued invitations successfully focused attention and fostered the elaboration of essential or central material. The focusing effect of cued invitations was illustrated by differences between the earlier and later narratives provided by the 15-year-old girl. In her first three narratives, the proportion of peripheral details was higher than the proportion of central details, but the opposite was true in her last four narratives (see Figure 4). In the course of their interview, the older and younger children were asked 11 and 17 open-ended questions, respectively (see Appendices I and II). Tables 1 and 2 compile all the elicited information to create composite temporally sequenced reconstructions of the events described by the two children, with superscripts used to indicate which utterance elicited the specified details. The tables show that the successive open-ended prompts and cued invitations continued to elicit free-recall accounts throughout the interviews. DISCUSSION Clearly, close analyses of these two forensic interviews illustrate how a series of open-ended prompts can be used in forensic settings to stimulate the production of narrative accounts that paint an increasingly clear and complete picture of the events described by alleged victims. Although these descriptive analyses focus on only two interviews for illustrative purposes, Orbach and her colleagues (2000) have shown that similar benefits are evident when a larger and more representative sample of cases is examined quantitatively. Analyses of both interviews illustrate that open-ended techniques (including cued invitations and time segmentation prompts) are effective with both older and younger children; there were small age differences in the proportion of information elicited using open-ended prompts, the proportion
Narrative enhancement Table 1. Event Described by the 5-Year-Old Boy
1639
1640
Y. Orbach and M. E. Lamb Table 2. Event Described by the 15-Year-Old Girl
Narrative enhancement
1641
Table 2. (Continued)
of central details elicited by the first invitation, and the proportion of information retrieved before the first option-posing questions were asked. The narrative enhancement process in the two cases was similar, despite the age difference between the interviewees and the differing amounts of information they provided. Cued-invitation and time-segmentation prompts woven throughout the interview led the interviewees to provide more abuse-related information and allowed the interviewers to focus attention on specific issues by using information the interviewees provided to enhance further retrieval. Cued invitations successfully focused attention and fostered the elaboration of essential or central material.
1642
Y. Orbach and M. E. Lamb
The effectiveness of narrative enhancing techniques is especially remarkable in the present cases when one considers that the long delays between alleged incidents and interviews might well have increased the witnesses’ tendencies to provide erroneous information in response to recognition prompts (Powell & Thomson, 1996, 1997; Powell, Roberts, Ceci, & Hembrooke, 1999). In addition, even though both children were obviously motivated to disclose (both made allegations before the interviewers turned attention to substantive issues), the initial disclosures were extremely brief. Thus, both the extent of elaboration and the quality of additional information were probably attributable to the interviewers’ investigative strategies and techniques. In our experience (e.g., Lamb, Hershkowitz, Sternberg, Boat, et al., 1996; Lamb, Hershkowitz, Sternberg, Esplin, et al., 1996; Sternberg et al., 1996, 1997), many investigative interviewers respond to skeletal disclosures like these by asking many focused questions, instead of employing the narrative elaborating techniques illustrated here. The fact that information provided by interviewees can be used so effectively to cue additional memory searches suggests that interviewers need to monitor children’s narratives closely. Investigators need to listen actively in order to extract central details from the children’s accounts that can later be used as contextual cues. To avoid interrupting the children’s narratives, interviewers might jot down keywords used by children and then use them as cues once the children’s narrative responses to non-cued invitations are completed. This strategy helps investigators to quote children accurately and to obtain more complete and uncontaminated accounts of the reported incident(s). The interviews examined here illustrate well the advantages of deriving cues from children’s free-recall accounts rather than from the investigators’ hunches or hypotheses. Acknowledgements—The authors would like to thank the interviewers and children who participated in this study, Hana Shiloach for coding the transcripts, and Michelle Garretson and Jessica Epstien for preparing the figures and tables.
REFERENCES American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC). (1990). Guidelines for psychosocial evaluation of suspected sexual abuse in young children. Chicago: Author. Bull, R. (1992). Obtaining evidence expertly: The reliability of interviews with child witnesses. Expert Evidence, 1, 5–12. Bull, R. (1995). Innovative techniques for the questioning of child witnesses, especially those who are young and those with learning disability. In M. S. Zaragoza, J. R. Graham, G. C. N. Hall, R. Hirschman, & Y. S. Ben-Porath (Eds.), Memory and testimony in the child witness (Vol. 1, pp. 179 –194). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Cederborg, A., Orbach, Y., Sternberg, K. J., & Lamb, M. E. (2000). Investigative interviews of child witnesses in Sweden. Child Abuse & Neglect, 24, 1355–1361. Craig, R. A., Sheibe, R., Kircher, J., Raskin, D. C., & Dodd, D. (1999). Effects of interviewer questions on children’s statements of sexual abuse. Applied Developmental Science, 3, 77– 85. Dale, P. S., Loftus, E. F., & Rathbun, L. (1978). The influence of the form of the question on the eyewitness testimony of preschool children. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 7, 269 –277. Davies, G. M., Westcott, H. L., & Horan, N. (2000). The impact of questioning style on the content of investigative interviews with suspected child sexual abuse victims. Psychology, Crime, and Law, 6, 81–97. Dent, H. R. (1982). The effects of interviewing strategies on the results of interviews with child witnesses. In A. Trankell (Ed.), Reconstructing the past: The role of psychologists in criminal trials (pp. 279 –297). Stockholm: Norstedt. Dent, H. R. (1986). Experimental study of the effectiveness of different techniques of questioning mentally handicapped child witnesses. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 25, 13–17. Dent, H. R., & Stephenson, G. M. (1979). An experimental study of the effectiveness of different techniques of questioning child witnesses. British Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology, 18, 41–51. Fisher, R. P., & McCauley, M. R. (1995). Information retrieval: Interviewing witnesses. In N. Brewer & C. Wilson (Eds.), Psychology and policing (pp. 81–99). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Geiselman, R. E., & Fisher, R. P. (1989). The cognitive interview technique for victims and witnesses of crime. In D. C. Raskin (Ed.), Psychological methods in criminal investigation and evidence (pp. 191–215). New York: Springer. Geiselman, R. E., & Padilla, J. (1988). Cognitive interviewing with child witnesses. Journal of Police Science & Administration, 16, 236 –242. Goodman, G. S., & Aman, C. (1990). Children’s use of anatomically detailed dolls to recount an event. Child Development, 61, 1859 –1871.
Narrative enhancement
1643
Hershkowitz, I., Lamb, M. E., Sternberg, K. J., & Esplin, P. W. (1997). The relationships among interviewer utterance type, CBCA scores, and the richness of children’s responses. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 2, 169 –176. Hershkowitz, I., Orbach, Y., Lamb, M. E., Sternberg, K. J., & Horowitz, D. (in press). The effects of mental context reinstatement on children’s accounts of sexual abuse. Applied Cognitive Psychology. Hutcheson, G. D., Baxter, J. S., Telfer, K., & Warden, D. (1995). Child witness statement quality: Question type and errors of omission. Law & Human Behavior, 19, 631– 648. Jones, D. (1992). Interviewing the sexually abused child: Investigation of suspected abuse. London: Gaskell. Lamb, M. E., & Fauchier, A. (in press). The effects of question type on self-contradictions by children in the course of forensic interviews. Applied Cognitive Psychology. Lamb, M. E., Hershkowitz, I., Sternberg, K. J., Boat, B., & Everson, M. D. (1996). Investigative interviews of alleged sexual abuse victims with and without anatomical dolls. Child Abuse & Neglect, 20, 1239 –1247. Lamb, M. E., Hershkowitz, I., Sternberg, K. J., Esplin, P. W., Hovav, M., Manor, T., & Yudilevitch, L. (1996). Effects of investigative utterance types on Israeli children’s responses. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 19, 627– 637. Lamb, M. E., Sternberg, K. J., & Esplin, P. W. (1998). Conducting investigative interviews of alleged sexual abuse victims. Child Abuse & Neglect, 22, 813– 823. Lamb, M. E., Sternberg, K. J., Orbach, Y., Hershkowitz, I., & Esplin, P. W. (1999). Forensic interviews of children. In R. Bull & A. Memon (Eds.), The psychology of interviewing: A handbook (pp. 253–277). New York and Chichester, England: Wiley. Leichtman, M. D., & Ceci, S. J. (1995). The effects of stereotypes and suggestions on preschoolers’ reports. Developmental Psychology, 31, 568 –578. Malpass, R. S. (1996). Enhancing eyewitness memory. In S. L. Sporer, R. S. Malpass, & G. Koehnken, (Eds.), Psychological issues in eyewitness identification (pp. 177–204). Mahwah, NJ: Laurence Erlbaum. Memon, A., Holley, A., Wark, L., Bull, R., & Ko¨hnken, G. (1996). Reducing suggestibility in child witness interviews. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 10, 503–518. Memon, A., Wark, L., Bull, R., & Ko¨hnken, G. (1997). Isolating the effects of the cognitive interview techniques. British Journal of Psychology, 88, 187–198. Memorandum of Good Practice. (1992). London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office. Milne, R., & Bull, R. (Eds.). (1999). Investigative interviewing: Psychology and practice. Chichester: Wiley. Milne, R., Bull, R., Ko¨hnken, G., & Memon, A. (1995). The cognitive interview and suggestibility. In N. Clark & G. Stephenson (Eds.), Criminal behaviour: Perceptions, attributions and rationality (pp. 21–27). Leicester, UK: British Psychological Society. Oates, K., & Shrimpton, S. (1991). Children’s memories for stressful and non-stressful events. Medicine, Science and Law, 31, 4 –10. O’Callaghan, G., & D’Arcy, H. (1989). Use of props in questioning preschool witnesses. Australian Journal of Psychology, 41, 187–195. Orbach, Y., Hershkowitz, I., Lamb, M. E., Sternberg, K. J., Esplin, P. W., & Horowitz, D. (2000). Assessing the value of scripted protocols for forensic interviews of alleged abuse victims. Child Abuse & Neglect, 24, 733–752. Orbach, Y., & Lamb, M. E. (1999). Assessing the accuracy of a child’s account of sexual abuse: A case study. Child Abuse & Neglect, 23, 91–98. Peterson, C., & Biggs, M. (1997). Interviewing children about trauma: Problems with “specific” questions. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 10, 279 –290. Peterson, C., Dowden, C., & Tobin, J. (1999). Interviewing preschoolers: Comparisons of Yes/No and Wh- questions. Law and Human Behavior, 23, 539 –555. Poole, D. A., & Lamb, M. E. (1998). Investigative interviews of children: A guide for helping professionals. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Poole, D. A., & White, L. T. (1993). Two years later: Effect of question repetition and retention interval on the eyewitness testimony of children and adults. Developmental Psychology, 29, 844 – 853. Powell, M. B., Roberts, K. P., Ceci, S. J., & Hembrooke, H. (1999). The effects of repeated experience on children’s suggestibility. Developmental Psychology, 35, 1462–1477. Powell, M. B., & Thomson, D. M. (1996). Children’s memory of an occurrence of a repeated event: Effects of age, repetition, and retention interval across three question types. Child Development, 67, 1988 –2004. Powell, M. B., & Thomson, D. M. (1997). Contrasting memory for temporal-source and memory for content in children’s discrimination of repeated events. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 11, 339 –360. Price, D. W., & Goodman, G. S. (1990). Visiting the wizard: Children’s memory of a recurring event. Child Development, 61, 664 – 680. Saywitz, K. J., Geiselman, R. E., & Bornstein, G. K. (1992). Effects of cognitive interviewing and practice on children’s recall performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77, 744 –756. Saywitz, K. J., & Goodman, G. S. (1996). Interviewing children in and out of court: Current research and practice implications. In J. Briere, L. Berliner, J. A. Bulkley, C. Jenny, & T. Reid (Eds.), The APSAC handbook on child maltreatment (pp. 297–318). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Saywitz, K. J., Goodman, G. S., Nicholas, E., & Moan, S. F. (1991). Children’s memories of a physical examination involving genital touch: Implications for reports of child sexual abuse. Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology, 59, 682– 691. Saywitz, K. J., Nathanson, R., & Snyder, L. S. (1993). Credibility of child witnesses: The role of communicative competence. Topics in Language Disorders, 13, 59 –78.
1644
Y. Orbach and M. E. Lamb
Saywitz, K. J., & Snyder, L. (1993). Improving children’s testimony with preparation. In G. S. Goodman & B. L. Bottoms (Eds.), Child victims, child witnesses: Understanding and improving testimony (pp. 117–146). New York: Guilford. Saywitz, K. J., & Snyder, L. (1996). Narrative elaboration: Test of a new procedure for interviewing children. Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology, 64, 1347–1357. Saywitz, K. J., Snyder, L., & Lamphear, V. (1996). Helping children tell what happened: A follow-up study of the narrative elaboration procedure. Child Maltreatment, 1, 200 –212. Sternberg, K. J., Lamb, M. E., Davies, G. A., & Westcott, H. L. (in press). The memorandum of good pratice: Theory versus application. Child Abuse & Neglect. Sternberg, K. J., Lamb, M. E., Esplin, P. W., & Baradaran, L. (1999). Using a scripted protocol to guide investigative interviews: A pilot study. Applied Developmental Science, 3, 70 –76. Sternberg, K. J., Lamb, M. E., Esplin, P. W., Orbach, Y., & Hershkowitz, I. (in press). Using a structured protocol to improve the quality of investigative interviews. In M. Eisen, G. Goodman, & J. Quas (Eds.), Memory and suggestibility in the forensic interview. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Sternberg, K. J., Lamb, M. E., Hershkowitz, I., Esplin, P. W., Redlich, A., & Sunshine, N. (1996). The relation between investigative utterance types and the informativeness of child witnesses. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 17, 439 – 451. Sternberg, K. J., Lamb, M. E., Hershkowitz, I., Yudilevitch, L., Orbach, Y., Esplin, P. W., & Hovav, M. (1997). Effects of introductory style on children’s abilities to describe experiences of sexual abuse. Child Abuse & Neglect, 21, 1133–1146. Stockdale, M. (1996). An evaluation of interview techniques used by police officers and social workers with sexually abused children. Unpublished Masters Thesis, University of Leicester, Leicester, England. Tobey, A. E., & Goodman, G. S. (1992). Children’s eyewitness memory: Effects of participation and forensic context. Child Abuse & Neglect, 16, 779 –796. Tulving, E. (1983). Elements of episodic memory. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Walker, N., & Hunt, J. S. (1998). Interviewing child victim-witnesses: How you ask is what you get. In C. R. Thompson, D. Herrman, J. D. Read, D. Bruce, D. Payne, & M. P. Toglia (Eds.), Eyewitness memory: Theoretical and applied perspectives (pp. 55– 87). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Walker, A. G., & Warren, A. R. (1995). The language of the child abuse interview: Asking the questions, understanding the answers. In T. Ney (Ed.), True and false allegations of child sexual abuse: Assessment and case management (pp. 153–162). New York: Brunner/Mazel. Warren, A. R., & Lane, P. (1995). Effects of timing and type of questioning on eyewitness accuracy and suggestibility. In M. S. Zaragoza, J. R. Graham, G. C. N. Hall, R. Hirschman, & Y. S. Ben-Porath (Eds.), Memory and testimony in the child witness (pp. 44 – 60). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Wood, J. A., Schreiber, N., Martinez, K., McLaurin, K., Strok, R., Velarde, L. D., Garven, S., & Malpass, R. S. (1998, March). Child interviewing techniques in two “ritual abuse” daycare cases: A quantitative comparison. Paper presented at the American Psychology and Law Society conference, Redondo Beach, CA. Yuille, J. C., & Cutshall, J. L. (1986). A case study of eyewitness memory of a crime. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71, 291–301. Yuille, J. C., & Cutshall, J. (1989). Analysis of the statements of victims, witnesses and suspects. In J. C. Yuille (Ed.), Credibility assessment (pp. 175–191). Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic. Yuille, J. C., Hunter, R., Joffe, R., & Zaparniuk, J. (1993). Interviewing children in sexual abuse cases. In G. S. Goodman & B. L. Bottoms (Eds.), Child victims, child witnesses: Understanding and improving testimony (pp. 95–115). New York: Guilford.
RE´SUME´ Objectif: En examinant attentivement des entrevues judiciaires d’un enfant de 5 ans et d’une jeune de 15 ans, on a cherche´ a` illustrer la quantite´ de de´tails qu’on peut obtenir en interviewant une pre´sume´e victime de mauvais traitements au moyen de questions non directives. Me´thode: Durant les deux entrevues judiciaires, on a sollicite´ des re´actions au moyen de divers types de questions—la question directe, la question-signal qui sugge`re une certaine re´ponse, des interventions directives ou des pre´sentations d’options. La quantite´ de de´tails que chaque type de question a produits a e´te´ compile´e. Re´sultats: Durant les deux entrevues, les questions non directives pre´dominent et elles sont disperse´es tout au long de la portion substantive de l’entrevue. Ce sont elles qui produisent la plupart des de´tails obtenus, me´thode qui s’est aave´re´e efficace durant tout la dure´e des entrevues. Une reconstruction des re´cits des enfants a de´montre´ qu’une succession de questions continue de de´clencher des informations additionnelles. Conclusions: Des questions non directives et bien pose´es, y compris celles qui misent sur des de´tails fournis par l’enfant, provoquent des comptes rendus chez les enfants de tous les aˆges. Parce que ces renseignements sont plus aptes a` eˆtre ve´ridiques, il est a` recomander que les enqueˆteurs y aient recours.
RESUMEN Objetivo: Se trato´ de ilustrar la cantidad de detalles que puede ser obtenidos de las vı´ctimas de denuncias de abuso utilizando preguntas abiertas. Para ello, se analizaron de manera detallada las entrevistas forenses de dos nin˜os de 5 y 15 an˜os.
Narrative enhancement
1645
Me´todo: Las preguntas abiertas de las secciones centrales de las dos entrevistas forenses fueron caracterizadas como (1) invitaciones, (2) “invitaciones apuntadas,” y (3) planteamiento de opciones o directrices. Se contabilizo´ el nu´mero de detalles generado por cada una de ellas. Resultados: En ambas entrevistas predominaron las preguntas abiertas y e´stas estaban distribuidas a lo largo de las fases centrales de la entrevista. La mayorı´a de la informacio´n fue obtenida a partir de la utilizacio´n de preguntas abiertas, que permanecieron igualmente efectivas en ambas entrevistas. La reconstruccio´n de los relatos de los nin˜os ilustro´ en que´ medida las preguntas continuaron generando informacio´n de manera exitosa. Conclusio´n: Las preguntas abiertas bien encuadradas, incluyendo aque´llas que utilizan como sen˜ales los detalles proporcionados por los nin˜os, generan relatos narrativos en nin˜os de todas las edades. Dado que tal informacio´n parece ser precisa, se propone a los investigadores que hagan ma´s extensiva la fiabilidad asignada a dichas preguntas abiertas. APPENDIX I Substantive Phase of Interview, 5-Year-Old Boy C—Yeah. Do you know J? You don’t know him huh? I—Who’s J? C—He’s the guy that lives uh, he’s two blocks away from my grandpa’s house. I—Uh huh (affirmative) C—and he, he put his hand down my pants. I—Okay. Tell me everything about that. C—Well, he did it, you don’t know my Uncle T, you don’t know my brother A, I—Uh huh (affirmative). C—J Put his hand down A, A uh, pants and, and J played with his pee pee. I—Okay. Tell me more about that. C—Well, then that was it and then we ran from him. We, we ran home and told our moms. I—Now you just told me a second ago that, that you and A, and who else? C—T. I—T. (Sighs) I need you to tell me more about that time that that happened. C—It was when, it was after Christmas. I—It was after Christmas? C—Yeah. I—Okay. Well tell me about what happened with you guys and J. C—Well, J we, we were he, he uh, he wanted us to follow him, him but we said no and he grabbed our hands. I—Okay. And tell me more about following him and him grabbing your hands. C— No, we said no that we wouldn’t. I—Okay. Then what happened right after that? C—And then we told our moms and then our moms talked to the, to the lady that, that’s at J’s house. I—Okay. Okay. So you said that he put his hand down A pants? C—And than mine and T. I—And yours and T’s. Okay. I need you to tell me more about him putting his hand down your pants. Tell me about that. C—Well, he did it, he did it because we, we said no that we wouldn’t follow him, so he did it. I—Uh huh (affirmative). Well tell me about the part that he put his hand down your pants. C—Well, it was when, it was when he it was when he told us to follow us, I—Uh huh (affirmative). C—and then we said no and then he grabbed our hands. We, he, he sat us down on a rock and we moved and he, he followed us. I—Okay. Tell me about him following you. C—Well, he turned around faster than us. I—Uh huh (affirmative). C—So he grabbed our shirts and put, put us back down on the rock. I—Okay. Now tell me more about what happened right after he put you down on the rock. C—Well, then he, that was when he put his hand down our pants. I—Okay. When he put his hand down your pants, what happened? C—I slapped his hand. I—You did? C—Yeah.... I told him leave me alone and he said no. I—Kay. What happened when he put his hand down your pants to you? C—Well, I told him to quit and he wouldn’t, so I slapped his hand. I—What did he do? C—Well, he squeezed, he squeezed my pee pee. I—Okay . . .. Okay. Now you said that this happened to T too? C—Yeah. I—Kay. Tell me about that part. C—Well, T said to leave me alone, and then T , I told T to slap his hand and T slapped his hard and, and J J uh, J said that he’d leave us alone because T, T sayed to me because J said that he would do it again.
1646
Y. Orbach and M. E. Lamb
I—Okay. C—So, so T told us to run home so we did and, and told our moms and dads. I—Okay. J has this happened one time or more than one time? C—It’s only happened one time. I—Okay. I need you to tell me more about where you were at when this happened with J. C—We was in the alley and it happened. I—Okay. C—He does not smoke. He can run faster then my hot wheel. I—Okay. Tell me more about J. C—Well he told us to come on and he yelled at us. I—Okay. Tell me more about what he yelled. C—He said come on now and he said oh and we, we ran this way, I—Uh huh (affirmative). C—And he pulled our shirts and slammed us down right on the rock and did that. I—Tell me about the rock. C—Well, he slammed us down on the rock and I—Uh huh (affirmative). C—and so we told, us we, we told him to leave us alone and then, then he said, then he said uh, for us to leave. Like scoot back this way I—Uh huh (affirmative). C— by him, I—Uh huh (affirmative). C—Like we went by him. I—Uh huh (affirmative), okay. J, I want you to tell me more about him putting his hand down your pants. You said that he squeezed your pee pee, C—Yeah. I—Do you remember if he touched your pee pee over your clothes or underneath your clothes? C—Underneath. I—Okay. Was it over your underpants or underneath your underpants? C—He put his hand down my front of my underwear. I—Okay. Okay. Have you seen J since this happened? C—No. When I was in my grandpa’s yard, I—Uh huh (affirmative). C— he, he pulled he, he said that he wouldn’t do nothing to us I—Uh huh (affirmative). C—that he was only gonna talk to us in the alley and that’s when he did it. I—Okay. Okay. Can you think of anything else that happened? C—Un huh (negative)
APPENDIX II Substantive Phase of Interview, 15-Year-Old Girl C—Oh, that guy when he raped me. I—Ok, tell me everything about that. C—Ah, just, ah, like what happened or? I—Everything. C—Well, well like, when I went, cause I like I used to always go to C. . ., and do stuff with my friends and there used to be like a lot of gangsters there and everything. And he was this little gangster guy, and I didn’t even know him. I, you know, never met him or anything and he just kept walkin past me and stuff and then, one time like, he like, he went to me and he’s like “Hi” and I’m all, “Hi” you know and I like, you know, meeting everybody, you know, meeting the people. And then, um, we went outside, cause we were gonna have a cigarette, you know, and he was smoking out there with his friends and all the sudden, he was like, oh, let’s just walk around and stuff. I’m all, oh, ok. So I didn’t think anything of it, you know, he seemed really nice and stuff, so I was like, hum, ok, so we walked around and all the sudden he like threw me down, put his hand over my mouth and then like ripped my clothes off and so I was like trying to like move, but he like, had his knees on my arms and stuff and he had his like, legs right there and I was like, “Oh, my God!” and I was like trying to scream but he had his hand over my mouth and everything and I was like crying and stuff and then, he finally, like, he like raped me you know, and then like, when he was done, he like got up and he walked off and I was just laying there and I was like, ohhhh . . . I—Ok, it’s important that I understand everything that happened that night. I want ya to think back to that day. C—Uh huh (positive). I—From the minute you met this person. C—Uh huh (positive). I—And tell me, step by step everything that happened after, you were at C. . . and you met this person. C—Uh huh (positive).
Narrative enhancement
1647
I—I mean . . C—Just like walked past him and he looked at me and I like looked at him, you know, cause you know (inaudible) everybody there, it was like, you know and he just looked at me, full eye contact with me and I was like, wow, you know. And I like, I kept walkin around and I kept seeing him (inaudible) and he was like “Hey.” And I’m all, “Hey,” and he said “What’s your name?” Well, D and he’s like, oh. And he’s like, “Oh, my name’s W” and I was like oh, ok. I didn’t really want ta talk to him but I was like, you know and then a couple of my friends they were like, go met new people and everything you know, cause everybody was just like meeting everybody, you know and hanging out and stuff and I was like, ok. So then I went out there with him and cause we, we, just like, we were sittin down on the bench and then he’s like, “Well, let’s go have a smoke” and every, to all of his friends and so they went out and that’s what happened. I—Ok. You told me everything when you were inside, and then you said you went outside. C—Uh huh (positive). I—With him. C—And first . . . I—And then what happened? C—. . . like we were out like in front and then we went out by the cars and then we just like, like we walked around to the right side, it’s like you walk around the whole building, you know. And people were going to walk around to the right side, those buildings behind it, it was right there. He like threw me down and put his hand over my mouth and I was like, you know, cause before he kept saying, he’s all “You’re cute” and stuff and I’m all “Thanks,” I just like kept trying to change the subject so that he wouldn’t keep saying that, you know I—Uh huh (positive). C—And it just really made me start to feel like (inaudible)but then I was like trying to think, just give him the benefit of the doubt. Be nice, you know, just try to maybe give him the clue that you don’t like it, I, you know, might change, you know cause, I just thought that might happen, but and I didn’t like him (inaudible) do that, but he did. I—And then what happened? C—After we, after when, like when we were walking around or? I—You said that he threw you down, put his hand over your mouth? C—Uh huh (positive). And he put his knees up on my arms. I still have, the whole time he had his hand over my mouth and he had his feet, like right on my legs, you know and then he like, undoing his pants, like with his hand, you know and stuff and I was just like, “Oh, my God.” I was like trying to close my eyes and just trying to scream and stuff and then he like, um, like when he pulled down his pants, he like was just trying to like, he was like coordinated with his legs and everything and I’s like, “Oh, my heck.” And he, he, he already had a condom on, I—Uh huh (positive). C—So I guess he’d already planned on that he was gonna do this or something and it just really scart me and then when he did it, I was like, after he like, had like raped me and stuff, you know, cause like when he raped me, he put both of his hands there and then he put like a sock in my mouth and I tried to spit it out, you know. And then, when um, all that happened, you know, I like, when he got up, and he had to pull the sock out, I was like, oh, I couldn’t like, I tried, wanted to scream, but then there was no sense where I could just run inside and try to go get help, you know, cause no one was outside and so I like ran inside, you know and then, everybody’s like “Oh, my God!” You know, my friend helped me clean up and stuff. I—Ok. You mentioned that he raped you. C—Uh huh (positive). I—To you and me, that may mean the same thing, but to other people it can mean different things. C—Uh huh (positive). I—Tell me everything that happened, as far as you saying he raped you. C—Like, he had sex with me? I—Ok. C—But I wasn’t willing, I was trying to get him off of me and I was like. I—Ok and... C—I didn’t want ta, I, it was like, no, no, no get off me, no. I—Even the word sex can mean different things to different people C—Oh, yeah, like I even told my friends like his, like a couple of my friends, was oh, yeah, we, we fucked her, we had sex and I’m just like “Oh, my God,” you know, it has different meanings to me. Making love is like the highest thing, you know, you’re really intimate, you know, and everything. And sex is you have a really good feeling with him and you want ta be with him, you know and stuff and it’s gonna last longer, you know and maybe you can make love to him later and just have, fucking is just wow, you don’t like him, you just want a free thing and that’s what I tell all my friends, don’t take it for granted and stuff, you know. I—Ok. But is what, I’m trying to understand exactly what happened that night. C—Uh huh (positive). I—You, you said that he raped you and then you said that he had sex with you. C—No, he didn’t have sex with me, I wasn’t willing. I—Ok. C—I was, he raped me. I—He raped you. C—Uh huh (positive). I—Tell me everything that happened when he raped you. C—How he had just like slipped it, he put his dick in me and stuff and I was like, I was like really scared, you know
1648
Y. Orbach and M. E. Lamb
and I was trying to scream, but he had a hand on my mouth, I was like, you know, and then all of the sudden like, cause I was still a virgin. I—Ok. C—And then when, all of the sudden, he was like, “Oh, God,” that’s what he said “Oh, God, there’s blood all over me” and I was just like, I didn’t know like what, what had really actually gone on, I was like, “Oh, my God.” You know and I was just so scared and stuff and then like, I was like still trying to get, the whole time, I was still trying to get him off me and then when he finally got off me, I like kind of like pushed him and then he like pulled up his pants and then just ran off . . . I—You said that he put his dick inside of you. C—Uh huh (positive). I—Tell me everything about that. C—Like when, cause like, when he like undid his pants, he undid my pants and he tried to like, he like ripped em. And I was like trying to keep em on, you know, like don’t like pull em down a little harder, you know. And stuff and I actually tried not to let him get my pants off me and then finally, he like, he like, fu, he went [Child action response]pulled em down really hard and then they came down to like right here [Child action response]. And then he like moved my under wear over cause he couldn’t get my under wear off, you know and then he like slid his dick in me and I was like “Oh, my God.” And I was just so scared and I was like, and I was still trying to get him off me and I was like trying to pull, like push him, like the bottom part away, you know, like his butt and stuff, so that it wouldn’t happen. I—Ok, you, you mentioned that he put his dick in you. C—Uh huh (positive). I—Tell me everything about that. C—Like? I—Females have different private body parts. C—Uh huh (positive). I—What part? C—He stuck it in my, my hole. He stuck it in, in my twat. I—Ok. You mentioned that he said his name was W ? C—Uh huh (positive). I—Tell me everything about W . C—His real name’s B P . I—What? C—His real name’s B P . . . I—Ok. Again, think back to night this happened, tell, describe B to me. C—He’s tall, um, he has slicked back hair. I—Uh huh (positive). C—And he had tail on the back and it was like brown hair. He’s like a (inaudible) um, I—What color is his hair? C—Brown. I—What was he wearing? C—He was wearing a white shirt and blue jeans. I—When was this? C—I don’t know, 1, 2 years, I don’t know the date, but it was 2 years ago. I—What time of year ago? C—Um, I think like during the su, summer time. I—So that was the summer of 97? C—Uh huh (positive). I don’t, I . . . I—Do you remember the holidays or anything that happened in your life that... C—Around it? I—Yeah. C—Unh uh (negative). Cause when it happened, I was just trying to just space it off and stuff, actually, I just totally wanted to blank it out. I—That at time this happened, so was, it was during summer, so you were out of school in between years or . . . C—It was like late at night. It was like 7 to 12. I—Do you remember if it was around the 4th of July or . . . C—I don’t know. I—Memorial Day. C—I think it was around, um, I, I don’t. Cause I know that like it was a couple of months, like before, like um, um, New Years or somethin, I don’t know. I know New Years was coming like later, cause everybody kept taking about the New Years party (inaudible). I—Is there anything else you think I should know? C—That’s all.
Pergamon
PII S0145-2134(00)00207-6
SPOTLIGHT ON PRACTICE
ENHANCING CHILDREN’S NARRATIVES IN INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEWS YAEL ORBACH
AND
MICHAEL E. LAMB
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, MD, USA
ABSTRACT Objective: To illustrate the amount of detail that can be elicited from alleged abuse victims using open-ended prompts by closely examining forensic interviews of a 5-year-old and a 15-year-old. Method: Interview prompts in the substantive sections of two forensic interviews were characterized as invitations, cued invitations, directive or option-posing, and the number of details they each elicited was tabulated. Results: In both interviews, open-ended prompts predominated and were distributed throughout the substantive phases of the interviews. Most of the information obtained was elicited using open-ended prompts, which remained equivalently effective throughout the interviews. Reconstruction of the children’s accounts illustrated how successive prompts continued to elicit information. Conclusion: Well-framed open-ended prompts, including those that use details provided by the child as cues, elicit narrative accounts from children of all ages. Because such information is more likely to be accurate, investigators are urged to rely more extensively on open-ended prompts. © 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. Key Words—Investigative interviews, Narrative enhancement, Open-ended questions, Recall memory.
INTRODUCTION THE RICHNESS AND accuracy of children’s accounts of their experiences are greatly influenced by the manner in which their memories are tapped (Lamb, Sternberg, Orbach, Hershkowitz, & Esplin, 1999). Because open-ended questions reliably elicit more detailed and more accurate responses than more focused and specific prompts do (e.g., Dale, Loftus, & Rathbun, 1978; Dent, 1986; Dent & Stephenson, 1979; Goodman & Aman, 1990; Hutcheson, Baxter, Telfer, & Warden, 1995; Oates & Shrimpton, 1991), experts and professional groups have recommended that forensic interviewers rely as much as possible on such open-ended prompts (American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children [APSAC], 1990; Bull, 1992, 1995; Jones, 1992; Lamb, Sternberg, & Esplin, 1998; Lamb et al., 1999; Memorandum of Good Practice, 1992; Milne & Bull, 1999; Poole & Lamb, 1998; Saywitz & Goodman, 1996; Walker & Warren, 1995; Yuille, Hunter, Joffe, & Zaparniuk, 1993). Recall responses to open-ended prompts tend to be incomplete, however, and
Received for publication January 20, 2000; final revision received April 25, 2000; accepted April 26, 2000. Requests for reprints should be sent to Michael E. Lamb, Section on Social and Emotional Development, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 9190 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20892. 1631
1632
Y. Orbach and M. E. Lamb
because investigators seldom ask very many open-ended questions in the course of their interviews, it has not been possible to determine whether multiple open-ended questions, framed judiciously, permit investigators to obtain more complete accounts. The present qualitative case study was designed to illustrate the effectiveness of open-ended questions in this regard. In both laboratory-analog and field settings, recall memory prompts tend to elicit longer, more informative, and more accurate (when this can be assessed) responses than recognition memory prompts do (Dale et al., 1978; Dent, 1982, 1986; Dent & Stephenson, 1979; Goodman & Aman, 1990; Hershkowitz, Lamb, Sternberg, & Esplin, 1997; Hutcheson et al., 1995; Lamb & Fauchier, in press; Lamb, Hershkowitz, Sternberg, Esplin, et al., 1996; Leichtman & Ceci, 1995; Oates & Shrimpton, 1991; O’Callaghan & D’Arcy, 1989; Orbach & Lamb, 1999; Peterson & Biggs, 1997; Peterson, Dowden, & Tobin, 1999; Price & Goodman, 1990; Saywitz, Goodman, Nicholas, & Moan, 1991; Sternberg et al., 1996; Wood et al., 1998). Option-posing, “Yes/No,” and suggestive interviewer utterances are more likely to elicit inaccurate information, perhaps because they probe for information of which the child is unsure or implicitly encourage children to acquiesce to suggested information and guess which response is expected (Goodman & Aman, 1990; Poole & White, 1993). Despite widespread agreement regarding the superiority of open-ended prompts, however, focused questions continue to characterize forensic interviews in Israel, Sweden, the United States, and the United Kingdom (Cederborg, Orbach, Sternberg, & Lamb, 2000; Craig, Sheibe, Kircher, Raskin, & Dodd, 1999; Davies, Westcott, & Horan, 2000; Lamb, Hershkowitz, Sternberg, Boat, & Everson, 1996; Lamb, Hershkowitz, Sternberg, Esplin, et al., 1996; Sternberg et al., 1996; Sternberg, Lamb, Davies, & Westcott, in press; Stockdale, 1996; Walker & Hunt, 1998). The adverse effects of option-posing and suggestive interview techniques are exaggerated when they occur early in the interview and when the children being questioned are very young. Thus, reliance on open-ended questions during the early substantive stages of investigative interviews, before the interviewer introduces any information, may not only yield greater amounts of uncontaminated information but also reduce acquiescence to misleading information introduced later in the interview (Warren & Lane, 1995). Saywitz and Goodman (1996) illustrated the negative effects of option-posing, misleading, and suggestive questions when introduced prior to open-ended utterances, and similar effects on the accuracy of free-recall accounts have been described by other researchers (Goodman & Aman, 1990; Leichtman & Ceci, 1995; Memon, Holley, Wark, Bull, & Ko¨hnken, 1996; Tobey & Goodman, 1992). When focused questions are needed to explore forensically crucial information that has not been disclosed spontaneously, therefore, experts recommend that these prompts be delayed until as late as possible in the interview. In practice, however, many interviewers introduce option-posing and suggestive questions very early in the interview—sometimes as the very first utterance— contaminating all subsequent information (Cederborg et al., 2000). Such practices underscore the importance of developing strategies to maximize the effectiveness and implementation of open-ended interview techniques. Both laboratory and field studies have been designed to evaluate narrative retrieval techniques (Bull, 1995; Fisher & McCauley, 1995; Orbach et al., 2000; Saywitz, Geiselman, & Bornstein, 1992; Saywitz & Goodman, 1996; Saywitz & Snyder, 1993, 1996; Saywitz, Snyder, & Lamphear, 1996; Sternberg, Lamb, Esplin, & Baradaran, 1999; Sternberg, Lamb, Esplin, Orbach, & Hershkowitz, in press; Sternberg et al., 1997). Thus, contextual cueing via mental context reinstatement facilitates recall in both laboratory (for a review, see Malpass, 1996) and forensic settings (Hershkowitz, Orbach, Lamb, Sternberg, & Horowitz, in press) and has been incorporated into the Cognitive Interview for children (Geiselman & Fisher, 1989; Geiselman & Padilla, 1988; Memon, Wark, Bull, & Ko¨hnken, 1997; Milne, Bull, Ko¨hnken, & Memon, 1995). Hershkowitz and her colleagues (in press) found that alleged abuse victims provided proportionally more details in response to open-ended utterances when the context was reinstated mentally, although mental context reinstatement had no significant effect on the total amount of information elicited.
Narrative enhancement
1633
The narrative elaboration technique (Saywitz, Nathanson, & Snyder, 1993; Saywitz & Snyder, 1993, 1996; Saywitz et al., 1992, 1996) involves providing visual cues to symbolize four types of information (events, participants, actions, and setting) and is associated with increases in the amount of information obtained in laboratory analog studies. Unfortunately, the narrative elaboration technique has not been studied in forensic settings, where the timing of the cues relative to the disclosure of relevant information would affect their suggestiveness and thus their suitability. When children are trained to respond to open-ended prompts in forensic contexts, however, they later produce more information from recall memory when prompted to “tell everything” about the alleged abuse (Sternberg et al., 1997). As a result, a fully structured investigative protocol (the NICHD Investigative Protocol) was developed to promote exhaustive open-ended questioning before interviewers introduce focused questions (Orbach et al., 2000). The NICHD Investigative Protocol provides pre-substantive training in three open-ended narrative-elaboration techniques. First, child witnesses are prompted to provide detailed accounts of neutral experienced events, using a variety of open-ended invitations (e.g., general invitations [“Tell me everything that happened”], follow-up invitations, prompting for more information [“Then what happened?” or “Tell me more about that”], and refocusing invitations [“Think back to the time you were there and tell me everything that happened”]). Second, details reported by the child are used as contextual cues and paired with open-ended invitations to direct the focus non-suggestively in the form of cued invitations (e.g., “You mentioned [something mentioned by the child]; tell me everything about that.”). Third, temporal cues are used in a similar way (e.g., “You mentioned [a point in time (or action) mentioned by the child]; tell me what happened just before/after that,” or “Tell me what happened from [a point in time mentioned by the child] until [another point in time mentioned by the child]”). Since the last two narrative enhancing techniques rely on material provided by the child, they involve providing cues to access otherwise inaccessible memory traces (Tulving, 1983) while avoiding the suggestiveness of references to undisclosed information. These two techniques operate like the “zooming” of a camera, focusing on one issue at a time and magnifying it to retrieve details that are otherwise inaccessible. Whereas photographic magnification is externally controlled, however, the ideal memory search should be triggered by the interviewer’s eliciting question but conducted by the child. The goal of the present case report is to illustrate how effectively these open-ended techniques foster free-recall narrative elaboration. Quantitative documentation of their effectiveness was published recently in this journal (Orbach et al., 2000) and the qualitative examination reported here is designed to provided a richer documentation of the phenomena. METHOD Two investigative interviews were selected for illustrative purposes. Both interviews closely followed the NICHD Investigative Protocol for interviewing child witnesses (Orbach et al., 2000) and were conducted by experienced police detectives in the Western United States. Each of the children interviewed, a 5-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl, alleged a single incident of sexual abuse (skin touch/fondling and vaginal penetration, respectively) and each was questioned only once (i.e., in the interview we examined). The boy was interviewed 8 months after the alleged incident, and the girl was interviewed more than a year after the alleged rape. Both children spontaneously initiated the disclosure (i.e., during the pre-substantive phase), making it unnecessary for the investigator to initiate recollection of the relevant event. In each case, the initial disclosure was extremely brief (“suspect-action-victim”) and was followed by the interviewer’s general invitation “Tell me everything about that.” A content analysis of the interview involved: (1) a qualitative analysis of the utterances with which the investigator elicited information, (2) a quantitative analysis of the victim’s accounts, assessing the number of informative “details” about
1634
Y. Orbach and M. E. Lamb
the reported incident, (3) a qualitative categorization of the reported details as either “central” (focused on the sexual allegation) or “peripheral” (descriptive of the investigated incident), and finally, (4) a sequential reconstruction of the children’s accounts, inserting informative details provided in several narratives into the appropriate temporal context. Data Coding Video-recordings of both interviews were transcribed and checked to ensure their completeness and accuracy. Two raters then categorized and tabulated the interviewers’ utterance types and the number of details conveyed in the children’s statements. Utterances were defined as “turns” in the discourse or conversation, and were classified into two broad categories, open-ended and focused. Open-ended utterances consist of “invitations” to provide spontaneous information about experienced events, without any interviewer input or constraints. Focused utterances are further classified into categorical recall prompts (i.e., directive) and recognition prompts (i.e., option-posing and suggestive utterances). For purposes of these ratings, we did not distinguish between questions and statements. Interviewer utterances during the portion of the investigative interviews concerned with substantive issues were placed in one of the following categories: 1. Invitations. Utterances (including questions, statements, or imperatives) prompting free-recall responses from the child. General invitations do not delimit the child’s focus except in a general way (e.g., “Tell me everything that happened”) whereas cued invitations use details disclosed by the child as contextual cues to prompt further elaboration (e.g., “You mentioned that he touched you. Tell me everything about the touching”). 2. Directive utterances. These refocus the child’s attention on details or aspects of the alleged incident that the child has already mentioned and, using Wh-questions, they provide categories for requesting additional information (categorical recall). 3. Option-posing utterances. These focus the child’s attention on aspects related to the alleged incident that the child has not previously mentioned, asking the child to affirm, negate, or select an investigator-given option (reflecting the investigator’s hypothesis) using recognition memory processes, without implying that a particular response is expected. 4. Suggestive utterances. These are stated in such a way that the interviewer strongly communicates what response is expected (e.g., “He forced you to do that, didn’t he?”) OR they assume details that have not been revealed by the child (e.g., Child: “We laid on the sofa.” Interviewer: “He laid on you or you laid on him?”). Interviewer utterances not related to the alleged incident under investigation (e.g., references to the interviewer’s and child’s roles) interjected within the substantive portion of the interview were coded as “Non-substantive.” Any incident-related information provided by children following such utterances was coded as “spontaneous” because it was provided spontaneously by the children rather than in response to an information-eliciting prompt. Details were defined as words or phrases identifying or describing individuals, objects, or events (including actions) which are integrally related to the investigated incident (Yuille & Cutshall, 1986, 1989; Lamb, Hershkowitz, Sternberg, Esplin, et al., 1996). Details were only counted when they were new and added to the understanding of the target incidents. As a result, restatements were not counted. Central details were defined as allegation-specific details (plot-related, specifying the outline of the sexual event; e.g., sexual actions or body parts, sexual verbal content), whereas peripheral details were defined as descriptive details about the incident, which were not allegationspecific or plot related (e.g., non-sexual actions or body parts, non-sexual verbal content). Content analyses of the children’s responses focused on: (1) the number of new informative details about the reported incidents; (2) the utterance types with which the investigators elicited each of the responses; and (3) the numbers of central and peripheral details reported.
Narrative enhancement
1635
Figure 1. Proportion of utterance types in the different quarters of the interview.
Before coding transcripts for the study, two raters were trained on an independent set of transcripts until they agreed on the identification of at least 98% of the details and utterance types. In the present study, both transcripts were independently coded by both coders to ensure reliability. Disagreements were discussed to consensus. ILLUSTRATIONS Appendices I and II reproduce the entire substantive portions of the two interviews under examination. The pre-substantive introductions, rapport-building sequences, explanations of ground rules, non-substantive digressions within the substantive phase, and the post-substantive
1636
Y. Orbach and M. E. Lamb
Figure 2. Proportion of details elicited using the different utterance types in the different quarters of the interview.
closing segments are not reproduced. As readers can see, open-ended utterances predominated in both interviews, with 55% and 72.5% of the interviewer prompts being open-ended in the interviews of the 15- and 5-year-olds, respectively. In both, open-ended prompts were distributed throughout the substantive phase of the interview, option-posing prompts were introduced later in the interview, and suggestive utterances were totally eliminated (see Figure 1). The high quality of both interviews was reflected in the large number and high proportion of informative details provided by each of the children in response to open-ended rather than focused questions (466 versus 38 and 162 versus 12 and 92.5% versus 7.5% and 94.2% versus 5.8% in the older and the younger child, respectively). The 15-year-old girl provided over 2.4 times the total number of details provided by the 5-year-old boy (Ms ⫽ 507 and 208, respectively) and 7.4 times the number of details in response to the first invitation (104 versus 14 details, respectively), but the proportions of details elicited in response to open-ended utterances (91.9% and 77.9%, respec-
Narrative enhancement
1637
Figure 3. Proportion of central and peripheral details per utterance type.
tively), the proportion of free-recall central details elicited in response to open-ended utterances (42.2% and 56.7%, respectively) and the proportion of free-recall central details elicited in response to the first invitation (8.5% and 6.7%, respectively) were similar in the two interviews. In both interviews, follow-up invitations elicited additional information and a substantial proportion of the details were provided before the first option-posing question (see Figure 1 and Figure 2). Free-recall narratives, containing new informative details, were distributed throughout the substantive phase of the interview so that details provided in later narratives, elicited using refocusing open-ended techniques, supplemented the children’s more skeletal initial narratives (see Figure 2). The proportion of details elicited using cued invitations (60.5% and 60.6% in the older and younger child, respectively) is substantially greater than the proportion of details elicited using general invitations (31.4% and 17.3%, respectively) even though cued invitations were introduced later in the interview, when much information had already been retrieved in response to earlier
1638
Y. Orbach and M. E. Lamb
Figure 4. Proportion of invitation-elicited details in each narrative that were central or peripheral (15-year-old girl).
invitations. Moreover, although the mean number of details per general invitation was higher than the mean number of details per cued invitation, cued invitations elicited proportionally more central details than general invitations did in both cases (see Figure 3) perhaps because cued invitations successfully focused attention and fostered the elaboration of essential or central material. The focusing effect of cued invitations was illustrated by differences between the earlier and later narratives provided by the 15-year-old girl. In her first three narratives, the proportion of peripheral details was higher than the proportion of central details, but the opposite was true in her last four narratives (see Figure 4). In the course of their interview, the older and younger children were asked 11 and 17 open-ended questions, respectively (see Appendices I and II). Tables 1 and 2 compile all the elicited information to create composite temporally sequenced reconstructions of the events described by the two children, with superscripts used to indicate which utterance elicited the specified details. The tables show that the successive open-ended prompts and cued invitations continued to elicit free-recall accounts throughout the interviews. DISCUSSION Clearly, close analyses of these two forensic interviews illustrate how a series of open-ended prompts can be used in forensic settings to stimulate the production of narrative accounts that paint an increasingly clear and complete picture of the events described by alleged victims. Although these descriptive analyses focus on only two interviews for illustrative purposes, Orbach and her colleagues (2000) have shown that similar benefits are evident when a larger and more representative sample of cases is examined quantitatively. Analyses of both interviews illustrate that open-ended techniques (including cued invitations and time segmentation prompts) are effective with both older and younger children; there were small age differences in the proportion of information elicited using open-ended prompts, the proportion
Narrative enhancement Table 1. Event Described by the 5-Year-Old Boy
1639
1640
Y. Orbach and M. E. Lamb Table 2. Event Described by the 15-Year-Old Girl
Narrative enhancement
1641
Table 2. (Continued)
of central details elicited by the first invitation, and the proportion of information retrieved before the first option-posing questions were asked. The narrative enhancement process in the two cases was similar, despite the age difference between the interviewees and the differing amounts of information they provided. Cued-invitation and time-segmentation prompts woven throughout the interview led the interviewees to provide more abuse-related information and allowed the interviewers to focus attention on specific issues by using information the interviewees provided to enhance further retrieval. Cued invitations successfully focused attention and fostered the elaboration of essential or central material.
1642
Y. Orbach and M. E. Lamb
The effectiveness of narrative enhancing techniques is especially remarkable in the present cases when one considers that the long delays between alleged incidents and interviews might well have increased the witnesses’ tendencies to provide erroneous information in response to recognition prompts (Powell & Thomson, 1996, 1997; Powell, Roberts, Ceci, & Hembrooke, 1999). In addition, even though both children were obviously motivated to disclose (both made allegations before the interviewers turned attention to substantive issues), the initial disclosures were extremely brief. Thus, both the extent of elaboration and the quality of additional information were probably attributable to the interviewers’ investigative strategies and techniques. In our experience (e.g., Lamb, Hershkowitz, Sternberg, Boat, et al., 1996; Lamb, Hershkowitz, Sternberg, Esplin, et al., 1996; Sternberg et al., 1996, 1997), many investigative interviewers respond to skeletal disclosures like these by asking many focused questions, instead of employing the narrative elaborating techniques illustrated here. The fact that information provided by interviewees can be used so effectively to cue additional memory searches suggests that interviewers need to monitor children’s narratives closely. Investigators need to listen actively in order to extract central details from the children’s accounts that can later be used as contextual cues. To avoid interrupting the children’s narratives, interviewers might jot down keywords used by children and then use them as cues once the children’s narrative responses to non-cued invitations are completed. This strategy helps investigators to quote children accurately and to obtain more complete and uncontaminated accounts of the reported incident(s). The interviews examined here illustrate well the advantages of deriving cues from children’s free-recall accounts rather than from the investigators’ hunches or hypotheses. Acknowledgements—The authors would like to thank the interviewers and children who participated in this study, Hana Shiloach for coding the transcripts, and Michelle Garretson and Jessica Epstien for preparing the figures and tables.
REFERENCES American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC). (1990). Guidelines for psychosocial evaluation of suspected sexual abuse in young children. Chicago: Author. Bull, R. (1992). Obtaining evidence expertly: The reliability of interviews with child witnesses. Expert Evidence, 1, 5–12. Bull, R. (1995). Innovative techniques for the questioning of child witnesses, especially those who are young and those with learning disability. In M. S. Zaragoza, J. R. Graham, G. C. N. Hall, R. Hirschman, & Y. S. Ben-Porath (Eds.), Memory and testimony in the child witness (Vol. 1, pp. 179 –194). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Cederborg, A., Orbach, Y., Sternberg, K. J., & Lamb, M. E. (2000). Investigative interviews of child witnesses in Sweden. Child Abuse & Neglect, 24, 1355–1361. Craig, R. A., Sheibe, R., Kircher, J., Raskin, D. C., & Dodd, D. (1999). Effects of interviewer questions on children’s statements of sexual abuse. Applied Developmental Science, 3, 77– 85. Dale, P. S., Loftus, E. F., & Rathbun, L. (1978). The influence of the form of the question on the eyewitness testimony of preschool children. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 7, 269 –277. Davies, G. M., Westcott, H. L., & Horan, N. (2000). The impact of questioning style on the content of investigative interviews with suspected child sexual abuse victims. Psychology, Crime, and Law, 6, 81–97. Dent, H. R. (1982). The effects of interviewing strategies on the results of interviews with child witnesses. In A. Trankell (Ed.), Reconstructing the past: The role of psychologists in criminal trials (pp. 279 –297). Stockholm: Norstedt. Dent, H. R. (1986). Experimental study of the effectiveness of different techniques of questioning mentally handicapped child witnesses. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 25, 13–17. Dent, H. R., & Stephenson, G. M. (1979). An experimental study of the effectiveness of different techniques of questioning child witnesses. British Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology, 18, 41–51. Fisher, R. P., & McCauley, M. R. (1995). Information retrieval: Interviewing witnesses. In N. Brewer & C. Wilson (Eds.), Psychology and policing (pp. 81–99). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Geiselman, R. E., & Fisher, R. P. (1989). The cognitive interview technique for victims and witnesses of crime. In D. C. Raskin (Ed.), Psychological methods in criminal investigation and evidence (pp. 191–215). New York: Springer. Geiselman, R. E., & Padilla, J. (1988). Cognitive interviewing with child witnesses. Journal of Police Science & Administration, 16, 236 –242. Goodman, G. S., & Aman, C. (1990). Children’s use of anatomically detailed dolls to recount an event. Child Development, 61, 1859 –1871.
Narrative enhancement
1643
Hershkowitz, I., Lamb, M. E., Sternberg, K. J., & Esplin, P. W. (1997). The relationships among interviewer utterance type, CBCA scores, and the richness of children’s responses. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 2, 169 –176. Hershkowitz, I., Orbach, Y., Lamb, M. E., Sternberg, K. J., & Horowitz, D. (in press). The effects of mental context reinstatement on children’s accounts of sexual abuse. Applied Cognitive Psychology. Hutcheson, G. D., Baxter, J. S., Telfer, K., & Warden, D. (1995). Child witness statement quality: Question type and errors of omission. Law & Human Behavior, 19, 631– 648. Jones, D. (1992). Interviewing the sexually abused child: Investigation of suspected abuse. London: Gaskell. Lamb, M. E., & Fauchier, A. (in press). The effects of question type on self-contradictions by children in the course of forensic interviews. Applied Cognitive Psychology. Lamb, M. E., Hershkowitz, I., Sternberg, K. J., Boat, B., & Everson, M. D. (1996). Investigative interviews of alleged sexual abuse victims with and without anatomical dolls. Child Abuse & Neglect, 20, 1239 –1247. Lamb, M. E., Hershkowitz, I., Sternberg, K. J., Esplin, P. W., Hovav, M., Manor, T., & Yudilevitch, L. (1996). Effects of investigative utterance types on Israeli children’s responses. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 19, 627– 637. Lamb, M. E., Sternberg, K. J., & Esplin, P. W. (1998). Conducting investigative interviews of alleged sexual abuse victims. Child Abuse & Neglect, 22, 813– 823. Lamb, M. E., Sternberg, K. J., Orbach, Y., Hershkowitz, I., & Esplin, P. W. (1999). Forensic interviews of children. In R. Bull & A. Memon (Eds.), The psychology of interviewing: A handbook (pp. 253–277). New York and Chichester, England: Wiley. Leichtman, M. D., & Ceci, S. J. (1995). The effects of stereotypes and suggestions on preschoolers’ reports. Developmental Psychology, 31, 568 –578. Malpass, R. S. (1996). Enhancing eyewitness memory. In S. L. Sporer, R. S. Malpass, & G. Koehnken, (Eds.), Psychological issues in eyewitness identification (pp. 177–204). Mahwah, NJ: Laurence Erlbaum. Memon, A., Holley, A., Wark, L., Bull, R., & Ko¨hnken, G. (1996). Reducing suggestibility in child witness interviews. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 10, 503–518. Memon, A., Wark, L., Bull, R., & Ko¨hnken, G. (1997). Isolating the effects of the cognitive interview techniques. British Journal of Psychology, 88, 187–198. Memorandum of Good Practice. (1992). London: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office. Milne, R., & Bull, R. (Eds.). (1999). Investigative interviewing: Psychology and practice. Chichester: Wiley. Milne, R., Bull, R., Ko¨hnken, G., & Memon, A. (1995). The cognitive interview and suggestibility. In N. Clark & G. Stephenson (Eds.), Criminal behaviour: Perceptions, attributions and rationality (pp. 21–27). Leicester, UK: British Psychological Society. Oates, K., & Shrimpton, S. (1991). Children’s memories for stressful and non-stressful events. Medicine, Science and Law, 31, 4 –10. O’Callaghan, G., & D’Arcy, H. (1989). Use of props in questioning preschool witnesses. Australian Journal of Psychology, 41, 187–195. Orbach, Y., Hershkowitz, I., Lamb, M. E., Sternberg, K. J., Esplin, P. W., & Horowitz, D. (2000). Assessing the value of scripted protocols for forensic interviews of alleged abuse victims. Child Abuse & Neglect, 24, 733–752. Orbach, Y., & Lamb, M. E. (1999). Assessing the accuracy of a child’s account of sexual abuse: A case study. Child Abuse & Neglect, 23, 91–98. Peterson, C., & Biggs, M. (1997). Interviewing children about trauma: Problems with “specific” questions. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 10, 279 –290. Peterson, C., Dowden, C., & Tobin, J. (1999). Interviewing preschoolers: Comparisons of Yes/No and Wh- questions. Law and Human Behavior, 23, 539 –555. Poole, D. A., & Lamb, M. E. (1998). Investigative interviews of children: A guide for helping professionals. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Poole, D. A., & White, L. T. (1993). Two years later: Effect of question repetition and retention interval on the eyewitness testimony of children and adults. Developmental Psychology, 29, 844 – 853. Powell, M. B., Roberts, K. P., Ceci, S. J., & Hembrooke, H. (1999). The effects of repeated experience on children’s suggestibility. Developmental Psychology, 35, 1462–1477. Powell, M. B., & Thomson, D. M. (1996). Children’s memory of an occurrence of a repeated event: Effects of age, repetition, and retention interval across three question types. Child Development, 67, 1988 –2004. Powell, M. B., & Thomson, D. M. (1997). Contrasting memory for temporal-source and memory for content in children’s discrimination of repeated events. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 11, 339 –360. Price, D. W., & Goodman, G. S. (1990). Visiting the wizard: Children’s memory of a recurring event. Child Development, 61, 664 – 680. Saywitz, K. J., Geiselman, R. E., & Bornstein, G. K. (1992). Effects of cognitive interviewing and practice on children’s recall performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77, 744 –756. Saywitz, K. J., & Goodman, G. S. (1996). Interviewing children in and out of court: Current research and practice implications. In J. Briere, L. Berliner, J. A. Bulkley, C. Jenny, & T. Reid (Eds.), The APSAC handbook on child maltreatment (pp. 297–318). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Saywitz, K. J., Goodman, G. S., Nicholas, E., & Moan, S. F. (1991). Children’s memories of a physical examination involving genital touch: Implications for reports of child sexual abuse. Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology, 59, 682– 691. Saywitz, K. J., Nathanson, R., & Snyder, L. S. (1993). Credibility of child witnesses: The role of communicative competence. Topics in Language Disorders, 13, 59 –78.
1644
Y. Orbach and M. E. Lamb
Saywitz, K. J., & Snyder, L. (1993). Improving children’s testimony with preparation. In G. S. Goodman & B. L. Bottoms (Eds.), Child victims, child witnesses: Understanding and improving testimony (pp. 117–146). New York: Guilford. Saywitz, K. J., & Snyder, L. (1996). Narrative elaboration: Test of a new procedure for interviewing children. Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology, 64, 1347–1357. Saywitz, K. J., Snyder, L., & Lamphear, V. (1996). Helping children tell what happened: A follow-up study of the narrative elaboration procedure. Child Maltreatment, 1, 200 –212. Sternberg, K. J., Lamb, M. E., Davies, G. A., & Westcott, H. L. (in press). The memorandum of good pratice: Theory versus application. Child Abuse & Neglect. Sternberg, K. J., Lamb, M. E., Esplin, P. W., & Baradaran, L. (1999). Using a scripted protocol to guide investigative interviews: A pilot study. Applied Developmental Science, 3, 70 –76. Sternberg, K. J., Lamb, M. E., Esplin, P. W., Orbach, Y., & Hershkowitz, I. (in press). Using a structured protocol to improve the quality of investigative interviews. In M. Eisen, G. Goodman, & J. Quas (Eds.), Memory and suggestibility in the forensic interview. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Sternberg, K. J., Lamb, M. E., Hershkowitz, I., Esplin, P. W., Redlich, A., & Sunshine, N. (1996). The relation between investigative utterance types and the informativeness of child witnesses. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 17, 439 – 451. Sternberg, K. J., Lamb, M. E., Hershkowitz, I., Yudilevitch, L., Orbach, Y., Esplin, P. W., & Hovav, M. (1997). Effects of introductory style on children’s abilities to describe experiences of sexual abuse. Child Abuse & Neglect, 21, 1133–1146. Stockdale, M. (1996). An evaluation of interview techniques used by police officers and social workers with sexually abused children. Unpublished Masters Thesis, University of Leicester, Leicester, England. Tobey, A. E., & Goodman, G. S. (1992). Children’s eyewitness memory: Effects of participation and forensic context. Child Abuse & Neglect, 16, 779 –796. Tulving, E. (1983). Elements of episodic memory. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Walker, N., & Hunt, J. S. (1998). Interviewing child victim-witnesses: How you ask is what you get. In C. R. Thompson, D. Herrman, J. D. Read, D. Bruce, D. Payne, & M. P. Toglia (Eds.), Eyewitness memory: Theoretical and applied perspectives (pp. 55– 87). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Walker, A. G., & Warren, A. R. (1995). The language of the child abuse interview: Asking the questions, understanding the answers. In T. Ney (Ed.), True and false allegations of child sexual abuse: Assessment and case management (pp. 153–162). New York: Brunner/Mazel. Warren, A. R., & Lane, P. (1995). Effects of timing and type of questioning on eyewitness accuracy and suggestibility. In M. S. Zaragoza, J. R. Graham, G. C. N. Hall, R. Hirschman, & Y. S. Ben-Porath (Eds.), Memory and testimony in the child witness (pp. 44 – 60). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Wood, J. A., Schreiber, N., Martinez, K., McLaurin, K., Strok, R., Velarde, L. D., Garven, S., & Malpass, R. S. (1998, March). Child interviewing techniques in two “ritual abuse” daycare cases: A quantitative comparison. Paper presented at the American Psychology and Law Society conference, Redondo Beach, CA. Yuille, J. C., & Cutshall, J. L. (1986). A case study of eyewitness memory of a crime. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71, 291–301. Yuille, J. C., & Cutshall, J. (1989). Analysis of the statements of victims, witnesses and suspects. In J. C. Yuille (Ed.), Credibility assessment (pp. 175–191). Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic. Yuille, J. C., Hunter, R., Joffe, R., & Zaparniuk, J. (1993). Interviewing children in sexual abuse cases. In G. S. Goodman & B. L. Bottoms (Eds.), Child victims, child witnesses: Understanding and improving testimony (pp. 95–115). New York: Guilford.
RE´SUME´ Objectif: En examinant attentivement des entrevues judiciaires d’un enfant de 5 ans et d’une jeune de 15 ans, on a cherche´ a` illustrer la quantite´ de de´tails qu’on peut obtenir en interviewant une pre´sume´e victime de mauvais traitements au moyen de questions non directives. Me´thode: Durant les deux entrevues judiciaires, on a sollicite´ des re´actions au moyen de divers types de questions—la question directe, la question-signal qui sugge`re une certaine re´ponse, des interventions directives ou des pre´sentations d’options. La quantite´ de de´tails que chaque type de question a produits a e´te´ compile´e. Re´sultats: Durant les deux entrevues, les questions non directives pre´dominent et elles sont disperse´es tout au long de la portion substantive de l’entrevue. Ce sont elles qui produisent la plupart des de´tails obtenus, me´thode qui s’est aave´re´e efficace durant tout la dure´e des entrevues. Une reconstruction des re´cits des enfants a de´montre´ qu’une succession de questions continue de de´clencher des informations additionnelles. Conclusions: Des questions non directives et bien pose´es, y compris celles qui misent sur des de´tails fournis par l’enfant, provoquent des comptes rendus chez les enfants de tous les aˆges. Parce que ces renseignements sont plus aptes a` eˆtre ve´ridiques, il est a` recomander que les enqueˆteurs y aient recours.
RESUMEN Objetivo: Se trato´ de ilustrar la cantidad de detalles que puede ser obtenidos de las vı´ctimas de denuncias de abuso utilizando preguntas abiertas. Para ello, se analizaron de manera detallada las entrevistas forenses de dos nin˜os de 5 y 15 an˜os.
Narrative enhancement
1645
Me´todo: Las preguntas abiertas de las secciones centrales de las dos entrevistas forenses fueron caracterizadas como (1) invitaciones, (2) “invitaciones apuntadas,” y (3) planteamiento de opciones o directrices. Se contabilizo´ el nu´mero de detalles generado por cada una de ellas. Resultados: En ambas entrevistas predominaron las preguntas abiertas y e´stas estaban distribuidas a lo largo de las fases centrales de la entrevista. La mayorı´a de la informacio´n fue obtenida a partir de la utilizacio´n de preguntas abiertas, que permanecieron igualmente efectivas en ambas entrevistas. La reconstruccio´n de los relatos de los nin˜os ilustro´ en que´ medida las preguntas continuaron generando informacio´n de manera exitosa. Conclusio´n: Las preguntas abiertas bien encuadradas, incluyendo aque´llas que utilizan como sen˜ales los detalles proporcionados por los nin˜os, generan relatos narrativos en nin˜os de todas las edades. Dado que tal informacio´n parece ser precisa, se propone a los investigadores que hagan ma´s extensiva la fiabilidad asignada a dichas preguntas abiertas. APPENDIX I Substantive Phase of Interview, 5-Year-Old Boy C—Yeah. Do you know J? You don’t know him huh? I—Who’s J? C—He’s the guy that lives uh, he’s two blocks away from my grandpa’s house. I—Uh huh (affirmative) C—and he, he put his hand down my pants. I—Okay. Tell me everything about that. C—Well, he did it, you don’t know my Uncle T, you don’t know my brother A, I—Uh huh (affirmative). C—J Put his hand down A, A uh, pants and, and J played with his pee pee. I—Okay. Tell me more about that. C—Well, then that was it and then we ran from him. We, we ran home and told our moms. I—Now you just told me a second ago that, that you and A, and who else? C—T. I—T. (Sighs) I need you to tell me more about that time that that happened. C—It was when, it was after Christmas. I—It was after Christmas? C—Yeah. I—Okay. Well tell me about what happened with you guys and J. C—Well, J we, we were he, he uh, he wanted us to follow him, him but we said no and he grabbed our hands. I—Okay. And tell me more about following him and him grabbing your hands. C— No, we said no that we wouldn’t. I—Okay. Then what happened right after that? C—And then we told our moms and then our moms talked to the, to the lady that, that’s at J’s house. I—Okay. Okay. So you said that he put his hand down A pants? C—And than mine and T. I—And yours and T’s. Okay. I need you to tell me more about him putting his hand down your pants. Tell me about that. C—Well, he did it, he did it because we, we said no that we wouldn’t follow him, so he did it. I—Uh huh (affirmative). Well tell me about the part that he put his hand down your pants. C—Well, it was when, it was when he it was when he told us to follow us, I—Uh huh (affirmative). C—and then we said no and then he grabbed our hands. We, he, he sat us down on a rock and we moved and he, he followed us. I—Okay. Tell me about him following you. C—Well, he turned around faster than us. I—Uh huh (affirmative). C—So he grabbed our shirts and put, put us back down on the rock. I—Okay. Now tell me more about what happened right after he put you down on the rock. C—Well, then he, that was when he put his hand down our pants. I—Okay. When he put his hand down your pants, what happened? C—I slapped his hand. I—You did? C—Yeah.... I told him leave me alone and he said no. I—Kay. What happened when he put his hand down your pants to you? C—Well, I told him to quit and he wouldn’t, so I slapped his hand. I—What did he do? C—Well, he squeezed, he squeezed my pee pee. I—Okay . . .. Okay. Now you said that this happened to T too? C—Yeah. I—Kay. Tell me about that part. C—Well, T said to leave me alone, and then T , I told T to slap his hand and T slapped his hard and, and J J uh, J said that he’d leave us alone because T, T sayed to me because J said that he would do it again.
1646
Y. Orbach and M. E. Lamb
I—Okay. C—So, so T told us to run home so we did and, and told our moms and dads. I—Okay. J has this happened one time or more than one time? C—It’s only happened one time. I—Okay. I need you to tell me more about where you were at when this happened with J. C—We was in the alley and it happened. I—Okay. C—He does not smoke. He can run faster then my hot wheel. I—Okay. Tell me more about J. C—Well he told us to come on and he yelled at us. I—Okay. Tell me more about what he yelled. C—He said come on now and he said oh and we, we ran this way, I—Uh huh (affirmative). C—And he pulled our shirts and slammed us down right on the rock and did that. I—Tell me about the rock. C—Well, he slammed us down on the rock and I—Uh huh (affirmative). C—and so we told, us we, we told him to leave us alone and then, then he said, then he said uh, for us to leave. Like scoot back this way I—Uh huh (affirmative). C— by him, I—Uh huh (affirmative). C—Like we went by him. I—Uh huh (affirmative), okay. J, I want you to tell me more about him putting his hand down your pants. You said that he squeezed your pee pee, C—Yeah. I—Do you remember if he touched your pee pee over your clothes or underneath your clothes? C—Underneath. I—Okay. Was it over your underpants or underneath your underpants? C—He put his hand down my front of my underwear. I—Okay. Okay. Have you seen J since this happened? C—No. When I was in my grandpa’s yard, I—Uh huh (affirmative). C— he, he pulled he, he said that he wouldn’t do nothing to us I—Uh huh (affirmative). C—that he was only gonna talk to us in the alley and that’s when he did it. I—Okay. Okay. Can you think of anything else that happened? C—Un huh (negative)
APPENDIX II Substantive Phase of Interview, 15-Year-Old Girl C—Oh, that guy when he raped me. I—Ok, tell me everything about that. C—Ah, just, ah, like what happened or? I—Everything. C—Well, well like, when I went, cause I like I used to always go to C. . ., and do stuff with my friends and there used to be like a lot of gangsters there and everything. And he was this little gangster guy, and I didn’t even know him. I, you know, never met him or anything and he just kept walkin past me and stuff and then, one time like, he like, he went to me and he’s like “Hi” and I’m all, “Hi” you know and I like, you know, meeting everybody, you know, meeting the people. And then, um, we went outside, cause we were gonna have a cigarette, you know, and he was smoking out there with his friends and all the sudden, he was like, oh, let’s just walk around and stuff. I’m all, oh, ok. So I didn’t think anything of it, you know, he seemed really nice and stuff, so I was like, hum, ok, so we walked around and all the sudden he like threw me down, put his hand over my mouth and then like ripped my clothes off and so I was like trying to like move, but he like, had his knees on my arms and stuff and he had his like, legs right there and I was like, “Oh, my God!” and I was like trying to scream but he had his hand over my mouth and everything and I was like crying and stuff and then, he finally, like, he like raped me you know, and then like, when he was done, he like got up and he walked off and I was just laying there and I was like, ohhhh . . . I—Ok, it’s important that I understand everything that happened that night. I want ya to think back to that day. C—Uh huh (positive). I—From the minute you met this person. C—Uh huh (positive). I—And tell me, step by step everything that happened after, you were at C. . . and you met this person. C—Uh huh (positive).
Narrative enhancement
1647
I—I mean . . C—Just like walked past him and he looked at me and I like looked at him, you know, cause you know (inaudible) everybody there, it was like, you know and he just looked at me, full eye contact with me and I was like, wow, you know. And I like, I kept walkin around and I kept seeing him (inaudible) and he was like “Hey.” And I’m all, “Hey,” and he said “What’s your name?” Well, D and he’s like, oh. And he’s like, “Oh, my name’s W” and I was like oh, ok. I didn’t really want ta talk to him but I was like, you know and then a couple of my friends they were like, go met new people and everything you know, cause everybody was just like meeting everybody, you know and hanging out and stuff and I was like, ok. So then I went out there with him and cause we, we, just like, we were sittin down on the bench and then he’s like, “Well, let’s go have a smoke” and every, to all of his friends and so they went out and that’s what happened. I—Ok. You told me everything when you were inside, and then you said you went outside. C—Uh huh (positive). I—With him. C—And first . . . I—And then what happened? C—. . . like we were out like in front and then we went out by the cars and then we just like, like we walked around to the right side, it’s like you walk around the whole building, you know. And people were going to walk around to the right side, those buildings behind it, it was right there. He like threw me down and put his hand over my mouth and I was like, you know, cause before he kept saying, he’s all “You’re cute” and stuff and I’m all “Thanks,” I just like kept trying to change the subject so that he wouldn’t keep saying that, you know I—Uh huh (positive). C—And it just really made me start to feel like (inaudible)but then I was like trying to think, just give him the benefit of the doubt. Be nice, you know, just try to maybe give him the clue that you don’t like it, I, you know, might change, you know cause, I just thought that might happen, but and I didn’t like him (inaudible) do that, but he did. I—And then what happened? C—After we, after when, like when we were walking around or? I—You said that he threw you down, put his hand over your mouth? C—Uh huh (positive). And he put his knees up on my arms. I still have, the whole time he had his hand over my mouth and he had his feet, like right on my legs, you know and then he like, undoing his pants, like with his hand, you know and stuff and I was just like, “Oh, my God.” I was like trying to close my eyes and just trying to scream and stuff and then he like, um, like when he pulled down his pants, he like was just trying to like, he was like coordinated with his legs and everything and I’s like, “Oh, my heck.” And he, he, he already had a condom on, I—Uh huh (positive). C—So I guess he’d already planned on that he was gonna do this or something and it just really scart me and then when he did it, I was like, after he like, had like raped me and stuff, you know, cause like when he raped me, he put both of his hands there and then he put like a sock in my mouth and I tried to spit it out, you know. And then, when um, all that happened, you know, I like, when he got up, and he had to pull the sock out, I was like, oh, I couldn’t like, I tried, wanted to scream, but then there was no sense where I could just run inside and try to go get help, you know, cause no one was outside and so I like ran inside, you know and then, everybody’s like “Oh, my God!” You know, my friend helped me clean up and stuff. I—Ok. You mentioned that he raped you. C—Uh huh (positive). I—To you and me, that may mean the same thing, but to other people it can mean different things. C—Uh huh (positive). I—Tell me everything that happened, as far as you saying he raped you. C—Like, he had sex with me? I—Ok. C—But I wasn’t willing, I was trying to get him off of me and I was like. I—Ok and... C—I didn’t want ta, I, it was like, no, no, no get off me, no. I—Even the word sex can mean different things to different people C—Oh, yeah, like I even told my friends like his, like a couple of my friends, was oh, yeah, we, we fucked her, we had sex and I’m just like “Oh, my God,” you know, it has different meanings to me. Making love is like the highest thing, you know, you’re really intimate, you know, and everything. And sex is you have a really good feeling with him and you want ta be with him, you know and stuff and it’s gonna last longer, you know and maybe you can make love to him later and just have, fucking is just wow, you don’t like him, you just want a free thing and that’s what I tell all my friends, don’t take it for granted and stuff, you know. I—Ok. But is what, I’m trying to understand exactly what happened that night. C—Uh huh (positive). I—You, you said that he raped you and then you said that he had sex with you. C—No, he didn’t have sex with me, I wasn’t willing. I—Ok. C—I was, he raped me. I—He raped you. C—Uh huh (positive). I—Tell me everything that happened when he raped you. C—How he had just like slipped it, he put his dick in me and stuff and I was like, I was like really scared, you know
1648
Y. Orbach and M. E. Lamb
and I was trying to scream, but he had a hand on my mouth, I was like, you know, and then all of the sudden like, cause I was still a virgin. I—Ok. C—And then when, all of the sudden, he was like, “Oh, God,” that’s what he said “Oh, God, there’s blood all over me” and I was just like, I didn’t know like what, what had really actually gone on, I was like, “Oh, my God.” You know and I was just so scared and stuff and then like, I was like still trying to get, the whole time, I was still trying to get him off me and then when he finally got off me, I like kind of like pushed him and then he like pulled up his pants and then just ran off . . . I—You said that he put his dick inside of you. C—Uh huh (positive). I—Tell me everything about that. C—Like when, cause like, when he like undid his pants, he undid my pants and he tried to like, he like ripped em. And I was like trying to keep em on, you know, like don’t like pull em down a little harder, you know. And stuff and I actually tried not to let him get my pants off me and then finally, he like, he like, fu, he went [Child action response]pulled em down really hard and then they came down to like right here [Child action response]. And then he like moved my under wear over cause he couldn’t get my under wear off, you know and then he like slid his dick in me and I was like “Oh, my God.” And I was just so scared and I was like, and I was still trying to get him off me and I was like trying to pull, like push him, like the bottom part away, you know, like his butt and stuff, so that it wouldn’t happen. I—Ok, you, you mentioned that he put his dick in you. C—Uh huh (positive). I—Tell me everything about that. C—Like? I—Females have different private body parts. C—Uh huh (positive). I—What part? C—He stuck it in my, my hole. He stuck it in, in my twat. I—Ok. You mentioned that he said his name was W ? C—Uh huh (positive). I—Tell me everything about W . C—His real name’s B P . I—What? C—His real name’s B P . . . I—Ok. Again, think back to night this happened, tell, describe B to me. C—He’s tall, um, he has slicked back hair. I—Uh huh (positive). C—And he had tail on the back and it was like brown hair. He’s like a (inaudible) um, I—What color is his hair? C—Brown. I—What was he wearing? C—He was wearing a white shirt and blue jeans. I—When was this? C—I don’t know, 1, 2 years, I don’t know the date, but it was 2 years ago. I—What time of year ago? C—Um, I think like during the su, summer time. I—So that was the summer of 97? C—Uh huh (positive). I don’t, I . . . I—Do you remember the holidays or anything that happened in your life that... C—Around it? I—Yeah. C—Unh uh (negative). Cause when it happened, I was just trying to just space it off and stuff, actually, I just totally wanted to blank it out. I—That at time this happened, so was, it was during summer, so you were out of school in between years or . . . C—It was like late at night. It was like 7 to 12. I—Do you remember if it was around the 4th of July or . . . C—I don’t know. I—Memorial Day. C—I think it was around, um, I, I don’t. Cause I know that like it was a couple of months, like before, like um, um, New Years or somethin, I don’t know. I know New Years was coming like later, cause everybody kept taking about the New Years party (inaudible). I—Is there anything else you think I should know? C—That’s all.