The past decade has seen a notable increase in interest in and research concerning the physiological correlates of behavior problems in childhood. The present article reviews what this growing body of research has revealed. The main tenet is that disruptions in both sympathetic and adrenocortical regulation appear to be common among children with internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. The associations between such neuroendocrine alterations and behavior are discussed and their implications for the fields of stress physiology, neuroendocrinology, and developmental psychopathology are outlined. It is proposed that substantial advances can be made by investigating patterns of physiological responses among multiple, concurrent systems rather than individual response systems.

School-age children with mental health symptoms showed a pattern of autonomic dimorphism in their reactivity to standardised challenges. This observation may be of use in early identification of children with presyndromal psychopathology.

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This study examined the effects of coaching (encouragement and rehearsal of false reports) and truth induction (a child-friendly version of the oath or general reassurance about the consequences of disclosure) on 4-to 7-year-old maltreated children's reports (N = 198). Children were questioned using free recall, repeated yes -no questions, and highly suggestive suppositional questions. Coaching impaired children's accuracy. For free-recall and repeated yes -no questions, the oath exhibited some positive effects, but this effect diminished in the face of highly suggestive questions. Reassurance had few positive effects and no ill effects. Neither age nor understanding of the meaning and negative consequences of lying consistently predicted accuracy. The results support the utility of truth induction in enhancing the accuracy of child witnesses' reports.The extent to which children's dishonesty may be affected by adult influences is of considerable theoretical and practical interest. Theoretically, knowledge concerning how adults influence children of various ages provides insight into cognitive and social development. Practically, children are routinely questioned about alleged experiences, both in day-to-day situations in which parents, teachers, and others inquire into mostly mundane events, and in more serious settings, such as legal contexts, where children's statements can have far-reaching implications.The purpose of the present study was to examine factors influencing dishonesty in a large sample of maltreated children, with a specific focus on how adult influences affect dishonesty. Maltreated children are particularly likely to be subjected to pressures to disclose or conceal information (Malloy, Lyon, & Quas, 2007;Sas & Cunningham, 1995), and their honesty and dishonesty are often at issue in legal contexts (Brennan, 1994), thus highlighting the need to understand dishonesty in this population. Moreover, two forms of NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript dishonest behavior should be considered: false denials of true events and false allegations of untrue events.Several factors are potentially important in influencing children's dishonesty. First, many of children's lies concern actions involving others (Wilson, Smith,& Ross, 2003), and others often seek to influence children's honesty. The latter person may be called an " instigator," to reflect his or her potential influence on children's statements. Efforts by instigators to encourage and rehearse dishonesty in children will be referred to here as "coaching." Second, the person to whom children lie, referred to as the "recipient," may also exert some influence. In an applied context, the recipient is often an interviewer, although a recipient could be any person with whom children interact. Third, several characteristics in children likely affect their dishonesty, including their age and attitudes about the morality and utility of dishonesty. Research relevant to each of these factors will be considered in...

Are expert witnesses needed in child sexual abuse cases to educate jurors about children's memory, suggestibility, and reactions to abuse, or do jurors already know what such experts could tell them? To cast light on this question, we surveyed jurors and jury-eligible college students and compared their beliefs with what is known via scientific research regarding children's memory and ability to testify, reactions to interrogation, and reactions to sexual abuse. We also asked participants to infer results of four widely cited studies of children's suggestibility. Participants' beliefs were consistent with findings from research on some issues (e.g., that children can be led to claim that false events occurred) but diverged from the scientific consensus on other issues (e.g., whether children can remember painful events in infancy). Similarly, participants sometimes overestimated and sometimes underestimated the level of suggestibility observed in empirical studies. Individual differences in accuracy were related to participants' gender, education and ethnicity, and there was considerable disagreement among participants on many questions. Implications of findings for the admissibility of expert testimony in child abuse cases are discussed.

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The interactive effects of physiological reactivity and social support on children's memory were examined. Four- to 6-year-olds completed a laboratory protocol during which autonomic responses and salivary cortisol were measured. Memory was assessed shortly afterward and 2 weeks later. During the second interview, children were questioned by a supportive or nonsupportive interviewer. Few significant relations emerged between reactivity and children's short-term memory. Following a 2-week delay, cortisol reactivity was associated with poorer memory and autonomic reactivity was associated with increased accuracy among children questioned in a supportive manner but decreased accuracy among children questioned in a nonsupportive manner. Results question traditional conceptualizations of reactivity as a risk factor and instead suggest that reactivity may only confer risk in certain environmental contexts.

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