The NICHD protocol: a review of an internationally-used evidence-based tool for training child forensic interviewers

Abstract

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...

Immediate interviewing increases children's suggestibility in the short term, but not in the long term

“…Because children's reporting is often poor, and it is thought that they are particularly susceptible at making memory errors (Otgaar, Howe, Brackmann, & Smeets, ), extra assistance is needed to facilitate their memory reports. Many research‐based protocols have been produced in recent decades with the NICHD protocol (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Protocol; La Rooy et al ., ), in particular, receiving substantial scientific validation. Despite the extensive corpus of literature on the NICHD protocol, it is not yet known whether this protocol and others like it can ‘immunize’ children from accepting later misinformation about their experiences.…”

Interviews of Children in a Portuguese Special Judicial Procedure

“…The use of the NICHD Protocol also has a positive impact on credibility assessment (Hershkowitz et al, ) and judicial decision‐making (Pipe et al, ). For this reason, the protocol has been adopted in several jurisdictions around the world (La Rooy et al, ) and has been used successfully with Portuguese children participating in judicial contexts (Peixoto et al, ).…”

“…Accordingly, the present study was designed to systematically evaluate the way children are interviewed during DMF proceedings. The types of utterance used by judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and psychologists when interviewing children about alleged abusive events and the details provided by the interviewees were examined in detail using procedures employed in comparable studies of this type (e.g., La Rooy et al, ). We hypothesized that because the DMF interviews are used at trial, and are conducted in the presence of prosecuting and defense lawyers, the questioning styles would resemble those observed in previous studies of in‐court questioning (e.g., Andrews et al, ; Klemfuss et al, ; Stolzenberg & Lyon, ).…”

A Systematic Review of Instruments used to Assess Nonverbal Emotional Signs in Children during an Investigative Interview for Suspected Sexual Abuse

“…We recommend the use and report of one of the available standardised interviewing protocols in all future studies of investigative interviews with children and adolescents for suspected CSA, such as the protocol developed by the NICHD (La Rooy et al ., ). For now, few of the studies included in this review gave detailed information about how the subjects were interviewed.…”