Consistency in children’s reports of sexual and physical abuse

Inconsistencies in the self‐report of traumatic experiences by unaccompanied refugee minors

“…In addition, whether or not memory consistency was affected by demographic, psychopathology, or both factors, was investigated. The results with respect to the occurrence of memory inconsistency were comparable with those reported in previous studies on consistency of self-report of traumatic events among children (Aalsma et al, 2002;Costello et al, 1998;Fergusson et al, 2000;Ghetti et al, 2002) and adult refugees (Herlihy et al, 2002;Whysak, 1994). Apparently, discrepancies in reports of emotionally arousing events are quite common.…”

“…Several factors may affect the consistency of reports of emotionally arousing events, such as age, event salience, degree of personal involvement, psychiatric complaints, type of information to be recalled, questioning style, developmental period in which the events occurred, and cognitive abilities (Ghetti et al, 2002;Krinsley, Gallagher, Weathers, Kutter, & Kaloupek, 2003). In the context of the present study, we were especially interested in the impact of emotional complaints on memory inconsistency.…”

“…According to Ghetti, Goodman, Eisen, Qin, and Davis (2002) children's reports of physical abuse are more inconsistent than those of sexual abuse, with younger children being more inconsistent compared to older children.…”

What can subjective forgetting tell us about memory for childhood trauma?

“…Previous research has, at times, highlighted gender differences in how emotional information is processed and remembered: Females, in comparison with males, show enhanced processing of and, consequently, better memory for emotional, in comparison with nonemotional, information (e.g., Canli, Desmond, Zhao, & Gabrieli, 2002;but see Grinshaw, Bulman-Fleming, & Ngo, 2004). In addition, in a study of alleged child victims, males recounted CSA incidents less consistently than did females across two investigative interviews (Ghetti, Goodman, Eisen, Qin, & Davis, 2002), suggesting a difficulty in retrieving a coherent memory representation, as well as a reluctance to discuss the topic. Furthermore, in a subsample of participants in the present study, males tended to commit more omission errors than did females (Alexander et al, 2005).…”

Childrens' report pattern from witnessing homicidal violence - the effect of repeated experience and repeated interviews

“…Research has repeatedly shown that children, even as young as three years old, have extensive memories for different types of stressful events (Howe, Courage & Peterson, 1996) such as painful medical procedures (Goodman, Quas, Batterman-Faunce, Riddlesberger & Kuhn, 1994, natural disasters (Bahrick, Parker, Fivush & Levitt, 1998;Fivush, Sales, Goldberg, Bahrick & Parker, 2004), physical and sexual abuse (Ghetti, Goodman, Eisen, Qin & Davis, 2002, Leander, Christianson & Granhag, 2007 and kidnapping (Terr, 1988).…”