The influence of transition prompt wording on response informativeness and rapidity of disclosure in child forensic interviews.

Abstract

Investigators hope to elicit disclosure or other case-related (informative) responses quickly when transitioning to the substantive phase of forensic interviews. Interviewing protocols suggest directly asking the child about the purpose of the interview to obtain early disclosure. However, interviewers sometimes rephrase scripted transition prompts, which has unknown consequences. The present study examined the effects that the first transition prompt phrasing and case-related variables have on the informativeness and rapidity of disclosure among a sample of 328 allegedly abused children who ultimately disclosed during a police interview. Regression models were fit and compared. Findings suggested that transition prompts that used what were 60% more likely to obtain informative responses than those that used why. Additionally, transition prompts that started with Do you know decreases by 91% the probability of obtaining immediate informative responses, compared with those phrased directly (e.g., “What have you come to talk to me today?”). Children in this sample produced equally informative responses to direct prompts and indirect Can you prompts. Further analyses showed that transition prompts phrased with why obtained disclosure later than those phrased with what. Moreover, children who are 8 years and older, as well those who engaged in a practice narrative, required half the number of substantive utterances to disclose compared with younger children. Overall, this research shows that there are some aspects within an interviewer’s control that are important to elicit case-related information and rapid disclosure in forensic interviews and should not be discretionary.

How Interviewers Navigate Child Abuse Disclosure After an Unproductive Start in Forensic Interviews

“…Older children provided more informative responses than younger children, but age did not interact with format. A field study has since provided further support for these findings (Garcia et al, 2022). The researchers identified the transition prompts used with 328 4-to 16-year-olds in interviews about allegations of abuse.…”

“…Regarding the strategy of rephrasing the transition prompt, we found that it is useful when performed earlier rather than late in the transition phase. This finding is highly logical; some transition prompt phrasings (e.g., "Do you know why…") are less likely to produce immediate topically relevant responses compared to others (Earhart et al, 2018;Garcia et al, 2022). When an interviewer subsequently rephrases the transition prompt in a better way, it helps a subset of children to respond informatively (Earhart et al, 2018).…”

“…The probability of obtaining an immediately informative response decreased by 60% when the format of the transition prompt contained why compared to what. Furthermore, indirect formulations-particularly "Do you know what/why…"-frequently yielded uninformative initial responses (Garcia et al, 2022).…”

“…Full ethical approval was obtained from Griffith University Human Research Ethics Committee prior to data collection (GU Ref No: 2018/512). This subset of the data used in a previous study (Garcia et al, 2022) comprises only those cases where children did not provide informative responses to the first transition prompt but did disclose later in the interview. One incomplete transcription from the original sample was excluded.…”

“…As much as possible, operational definitions for high versus low quality were informed by prior research. For example, given that both an analogue and field study have demonstrated more informative responses following a what than why transition prompt (Earhart et al, 2018;Garcia et al, 2022), the former was coded as high and the latter as low quality. Introducing prior information can be considered high quality if children are asked whether the information is accurate, and low quality if the introduced information is presumptive (Powell & Snow, 2007).…”