Memories of Separate Occurrences of an Event: Implications for Interviewing Children

Abstract

The authors review the empirical literature relating to factors that affect children's ability to remember specific occurrences of a repeated event and draw implications for professionals who conduct investigatory interviews with children. Issues addressed include the timing of the interview, the type of errors, the questioning techniques, the age of the child, the consistency of the child's account and the impact of an intervening interview.

Describing individual incidents of sexual abuse: a review of research on the effects of multiple sources of information on children’s reports

“…When questioned in a yes/no fashion about details that did vary, however, they can be more suggestible than when answering questions about fixed details, and can be more suggestible than children who have experienced an event just one instantiation of a detail (e.g., "Tell me what happened" rather than "Did he touch your pee-pee?"). When questioned about a particular incident, children may agree with the specific instantiation if it happened at any time even if it did not happen during the particular incident about which they are being probed (Powell, Thomson & Dietze, 1997;Powell et al, 1999;Roberts & Blades, 1999, 2000b.…”

Do Dolls and HFDs Assist in Eliciting Information about Touch in Interviews with Children?

“…As asserted by Powell et al (1997), both children and adults are much better at recalling details that are common to all occurrences of a similar event rather than those specific to one occurrence. For example, a child who visits the doctor regularly is more likely to remember the features common to all visits (e.g.…”

“…This information, however, is often less accurate than that given in free recall both when children are asked about general event details (e.g. Leichtman & Ceci, 1995;Hutcheson, Baxter, Telfer & Warden, 1995;Powell, Thomson & Dietze, 1997) and specifically about touch that occurred in an event (e.g. Leippe et al, 1991;Pipe, et al, 2004).…”

“…the clothes worn by the doctor). This can become problematic in legal contexts, where an entire trial can be focused on one abuse incident out of many that may have been experienced by the child (Powell et al, 1997). In such cases, the child is expected to separate each experience out and offer details of a specific incident Pipe et al, 2004).…”

“…In such cases, the child is expected to separate each experience out and offer details of a specific incident Pipe et al, 2004). This would be a difficult task for a young child, who is unlikely to have developed the ability to discriminate between similar experiences (Powell et al;Saywitz, 1995).…”