What Does “Touch” Mean to Young Children?: An Empirical Study

Hashima, Patricia Y.; Barton, Keith C.; Steward, Margaret S.

doi:10.2466/pms.1988.67.3.683

Cited by 9 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…The touches were designed to be distinctive and unusual, but children may not have attended to them in the context of more exciting aspects of dressing up for a photograph. It is also possible that these children did not encode the contacts as 'touches' as opposed to the associated actions (e.g., 'tickling') (Bruck, 2008;Hashima, Barton, & Stewart, 1988;Quas & Schaaf, 2002). The children in the verbal questions condition were, however, asked an additional question about each assessed touch, which specifically named the action associated with the touch (e.g., 'Did the photographer tickle your feet') and still responded inaccurately, tending to deny true touches rather than affirm false touches (i.e., a 'no' bias).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Do Body Diagrams Affect the Accuracy and Consistency of Children's Reports of Bodily Touch Across Repeated Interviews?

Brown

Pipe

Lewis

et al. 2011

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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We examined the amount, accuracy, and consistency of information reported by 58 5-to 7-year-old children about a staged event that included physical contact/touching. Both 1 and 7 months following the event, children were asked both open and yes/no questions about touch [i] when provided with human body diagrams (HBDs), [ii] following instruction and practice using the HBDs, or [iii] without HBDs. Children interviewed with HBDs reported more information at 7 months, but a high proportion of inaccurate touches. Children seldom repeated touch-related information across the two interviews and did not incorporate errors made in the 1-month interview into their open-ended accounts 6 months later. Asking children to talk about innocuous touch may lead them to report unreliable information, especially when HBDs are used as aids and repeated interviews are conducted across delays that resemble those typical of forensic contexts.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Do Body Diagrams Affect the Accuracy and Consistency of Children's Reports of Bodily Touch Across Repeated Interviews?

Brown

Pipe

Lewis

et al. 2011

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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“…Difficulties with "touch" (18% of probable miscommunications). Whereas attorneys might use the word "touch" as an umbrella term to describe all forms of bodily contact, there is evidence that children initially have an underinclusive understanding of "touch," strictly using the word to refer to manual touch (Hashima et al, 1988). Hence, a child might deny that a touch occurred if the touching was done with another body part or an object.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Imprecision About Body Mechanics When Child Witnesses Are Questioned About Sexual Abuse

Sullivan

George

Stolzenberg

et al. 2021

J Interpers Violence

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In child sexual abuse cases, a central part of the child’s testimony is their description of the abuse episode. However, it is often difficult for children to describe the body mechanics of abuse, and miscommunications are likely to occur. In the present study, we examined questions about the mechanics of abuse in trial transcripts ( N = 63) to identify sources of miscommunication ( N = 130) between attorneys and children (5–12 years old, M age at trial = 9.44, SD = 1.97). We found that both attorneys and children used imprecise language, which led to miscommunication. Specifically, the imprecise use of sexual terminology and the word “touch,” polarity items, broad open-ended questions, anaphora and elliptical questions, and “how” questions led to imprecision in attorneys’ questions. Imprecise attorney questions often elicited underinformative answers from children, including misinterpretations of the grain size (i.e., level of detail) requested. In response to these underinformative answers, attorneys at times asked highly focused and leading questions, which led to further miscommunications. Implications and recommendations for future research on how best to elicit details about the mechanics of abuse from children are discussed.

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“…There is also evidence that young children may have an underinclusive definition of the word "touch"-they believe that it applies only to use of the hand (as opposed to the mouth or sexual body part) (Bruck, 2009). Hashima, Barton, and Steward (1988) found specifically that three-to six-year-olds sometimes did not consider touching with a washcloth "touch" and often did not consider kissing "touch. "…”

Section: Abstract Investigative Interviewing Bodily Contact Touchinmentioning

confidence: 97%

Eliciting Accounts of Alleged Child Sexual Abuse: How Do Children Report Touch?

Teoh¹,

Pipe²,

Johnson³

et al. 2014

Journal of Child Sexual Abuse

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Investigative interviewers frequently question alleged victims of child sexual abuse about any touching or bodily contact that might have occurred. In the present study of forensic interviews with 192 alleged sexual abuse victims, between 4 and 13 years of age, we examined the frequency with which alleged victims reported bodily contact as "touch" and the types of prompts associated with "touch" reports. Even young alleged victims of sexual abuse reported bodily contact as "touch," and they used the word "touch" more frequently in response to recall than recognition prompts. Regardless of age, children typically referred to "touch" before interviewers used this term, suggesting that even young children are able to report "touch" without being cued by interviewers.

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What Does “Touch” Mean to Young Children?: An Empirical Study

Cited by 9 publications

References 1 publication

How Do Body Diagrams Affect the Accuracy and Consistency of Children's Reports of Bodily Touch Across Repeated Interviews?

How Do Body Diagrams Affect the Accuracy and Consistency of Children's Reports of Bodily Touch Across Repeated Interviews?

Imprecision About Body Mechanics When Child Witnesses Are Questioned About Sexual Abuse

Eliciting Accounts of Alleged Child Sexual Abuse: How Do Children Report Touch?

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