The effect of suggestive questions on 3- to 5-year-old and 6- to 8-year-old children's recall of the final occurrence of a repeated event was examined. The event included fixed (identical) items as well as variable items where a new instantiation represented the item in each occurrence of the series. Relative to reports of children who participated in a single occurrence, children's reports about fixed items of the repeated event were more accurate and less contaminated by false suggestions. For variable items, repeated experience led to a decline in memory of the specific occurrence; however, there was no increase in susceptibility to suggestions about details that had not occurred. Most errors after repeated experience were intrusions of details from nontarget occurrences. Although younger children and children who were interviewed a while after the event were more suggestible, respectively, than older children and those interviewed soon after the event, repeated experience attenuated these effects.

Three-to nine-year-old children (n ¼ 144) interacted with a photographer and were interviewed about the event either a week or a month later. The informativeness and accuracy of information provided following either open-ended or direct rapport building were compared. Children in the open-ended rapport-building condition provided more accurate reports than children in the direct rapport-building condition after both short and long delays. Open-ended rapport-building led the three-to four-yearolds to report more errors in response to the first recall question about the event, but they went on to provide more accurate reports in the rest of the interview than counterparts in the direct rapportbuilding condition. These results suggest that forensic interviewers should attempt to establish rapport with children using an open-ended style.

Identifying the sources of memories (e.g., who carried out an action, whether an event happened or was suggested, when an instance of a repeated event occurred) is an important skill in providing accurate accounts of events in forensic investigations. Sensitivity to the nature and development of children's source-monitoring skills can inform interviewing practices. Five perspectives addressing alternate aspects of the development of children's source monitoring are outlined (source-monitoring theory, fuzzy-trace theory, schema theory, the person-based perspective, and the mental-state reasoning model). Six main areas of empirical research stemming from these theories are then discussed with emphasis on how the findings relate to the forensic arena: The similarity of sources, the identity of the agent, prospective processing, the relation of source monitoring to other cognitive skills, metacognitive understanding, and the stringency of source-monitoring decisions. The research reviewed is used to address two main applications to forensic investigations: (a) expectations of child witnesses, and (b) interviewing protocols.Children's ability to distinguish 3 Children's Ability To Distinguish Between Memories From Multiple Sources: Implications For The Quality And Accuracy Of Eyewitness StatementsOne of the most important investigative tools in forensics is the interview. Interviewing victims of and witnesses to crimes is especially important in investigations where there is little physical evidence and the main evidence therefore comes from eyewitness accounts. Concern has been raised about the reliability of eyewitness testimony, however, because many factors can have adverse effects on the length, quality, and accuracy of testimony. In addition to providing an accurate account of exactly what transpired during a crime, witnesses must also accurately identify the sources or origins of event details. Examples include identifying the source of an action (e.g., Who did it, Perpetrator A or Perpetrator B?), the source of a voice (e.g., Who said it, me or the perpetrator?), the reality status of a past event (e.g., Did it really happen or did I just dream it? Did I really see it happen or did I just hear about it?), and identifying one incident from a series of incidents (e.g., Did he touch me the first time he babysat or the last time he babysat? Did he touch me in the bedroom or the bathroom?). In all of these examples, child victims and witnesses must retrieve their memories and identify the precise source of those memories. Research on the development of such "source monitoring" (Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993; can provide us with accurate expectations of child witnesses' capabilities, contribute to the development of appropriate interviewing protocols, and shed light on interviewers' judgments of child witnesses' credibility.There are numerous source distinctions relevant to the forensic arena (see Table 1 for examples). Witnesses need to monitor various sources contained in a target incident (i.e., t...

This article reviews an evidence-based tool for training child forensic interviewers called the NICHD Protocol, and the relevant research on: children's memory development; communication; suggestibility; the importance of open-prompts, and challenges associated with interview training. We include international contributions from experienced trainers, practitioners, and scientists, who are already using the Protocol or whose national or regional procedures have been directly influenced by the NICHD Protocol research (Canada, Finland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Norway, Portugal, Scotland, and United States). Throughout the review, these experts comment on: how and when the Protocol was adopted in their country; who uses it; challenges to implementation and translation; training procedures; and other pertinent aspects.We aim to further promote good interviewing practice by sharing the experiences of these experts. The NICHD Protocol can be easily incorporated into existing training programs worldwide and is available for free. It was originally developed in English and Hebrew and is available in several other languages at nichdprotocol.com. Central to the development of interview guidelines has been knowledge of how memory works, children's developmental capabilities, and the conditions that improve children's ability to discuss their abuse experiences. After many decades of experimental and applied memory research, conducted primarily by psychologists, we have come to understand the strengths, weaknesses, and features of children's memory very well, and this knowledge has shaped many professional recommendations about interviewing children (e.g., American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children [APSAC], 1990[APSAC], , 1997 Home Office, 1992, 2002, Lamb, Orbach, Hershkowitz, Esplin, & Horowitz, 2007; Ministry of Justice, 2011; Poole & Lamb, NICHD PROTOCOL REVIEW 4 1998; Scottish Executive, 2003. Because our knowledge of memory is now so advanced, core recommendations made by professional bodies worldwide share remarkable consensus Lamb, La Rooy, Malloy, & Katz, 2011). Small differences in recommended procedures usually arise out of regional idiosyncratic legal constraints, rather than disagreements between scientists about the basic nature of memory and children's developing abilities. While structured, the NICHD Protocol is flexible enough to allow for such modifications to enhance its applicability for use around the world. We now briefly review the empirical literature on children's memory development that served to guide all aspects of the NICHD Protocol. Important Characteristics of Memory DevelopmentVery young children can remember and report their experiences. It is paradoxical that, as adults, we have very little recollection of our early years of life, whereas young children and infants can and do remember their experiences, at least for a short period of time (e.g., Bauer, Wenner, Dropik, & Wewerka, 2000). Memory for experiences in fact develops long before infants can tell us about the...

We discuss the implications of this research for interviewing children in sexual abuse investigations and provide a set of research-based recommendations for investigative interviewers.