Children's allegations of sexual abuse: Forensic and scientific issues: A reply to commentators.

Abstract

In this rebuttal, the authors summarize and reply to many of the comments made about the amicus brief. In Section I, they address issues that are commonly raised by "pro-child" advocates in their attacks on the scientific data regarding children's suggestibility. In Section II, they consider issues related to the proper scope of an amicus brief. In the third section, they focus on the concepts of reliability, credibility, and competence and argue that only reliability was an issue in Michaels. In Section IV, they consider some of the procedures involved in taint hearings. The final section, the broadest in scope, covers some legal, forensic, and scientific developments that have occurred since Michaels.

Reliability and credibility of young children's reports: From research to policy and practice.

“…but may quickly resort to a barrage of very specific questions, many of which are repeated, and many of which are leading in the sense that the question stem presupposes the desired answer, when interviewers do not obtain information that is consistent with their suspicions, they may repeatedly interview children until they do obtain such information, sometimes subtly reinforcing responses consistent with their beliefs. Thus, child witnesses are often interviewed over a prolonged period of time, and they are reinterviewed on many occasions about the same set of suspected events (for a review, see Ceci, Bruck, & Rosenthal, 1995).…”

Where researchers fear to tread: Interpretative differences among testifying experts in child sexual abuse cases.

“…For ethical reasons, research on children's suggestibility cannot directly test the proposition that children can be manipulated to recall abusive experiences that never occurred. To the extent that abusive experiences are different than experiences that can be tested, the applicability of suggestibility research to sexual abuse allegations is open to question (Ceci, Bruck, & Rosenthal, 1995;Lyon, 1995). Moreover, even assuming WHERE RESEARCHERS FEAR TO TREAD: A COMMENT agreement that differences exist, the practical significance of such differences is a matter of subjective opinion.…”