The effects of intensive training and ongoing supervision on the quality of investigative interviews with alleged sex abuse victims

Applied Developmental Science

Volumn 6, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 114-125

  Lamb, Michael E ^a   Sternberg, Kathleen J ^a   Orbach, Yael ^a   Hershkowitz, Irit ^b   Horowitz, Dvora ^c   Esplin, Phillip W ^d  

^a EUNICE KENNEDY SHRIVER NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF CHILD HEALTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF HAIFA   (Israel)

^c Israeli Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs   (United States)

^d Private Practice   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84907940732     PISSN: 10888691     EISSN: 1532480X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1207/S1532480XADS0603_2     Document Type: Article

References (52)

1. Adams, B. J., Field L.,&Verhave T. (1999). Effects of unreinforced conditional selection training, multiple negative comparison training, and feedback on equivalence class formation. Psychological Record, 49, 685–702.
2. Aldridge, J. (1992). The further training of professionals dealing with child witnesses. In H. Dent & R. Flin (Eds.), Children as witnesses (pp. 231–244). Chichester, England: Wiley.
3. Aldridge, J., & Cameron, S. (1999). Interviewing child witnesses: Questioning techniques and the role of training. Applied Developmental Science, 3, 136–147.
4. American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. (1990). Guidelines for psychosocial evaluation of suspected sexual abuse in young children. Chicago: Author.
5. Bruck, M. (1999). A summary of an affidavit prepared for Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Cheryl Amirault LeFave. Applied Developmental Science, 3, 110–127.
6. Bull, R. (1992). Obtaining evidence expertly: The reliability of interviews with child witnesses. Expert Evidence, 1, 5–12.
7. Bull, R. (1995). Innovative techniques for the questioning of child witnesses, especially those who are young and those with a learning disability. In M. S. Zaragoza, J. R. Graham, G. C. N. Hall, R. Hirschman, & Y. S. Ben-Porath (Eds.), Memory and testimony in the child witness (pp. 179–194). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
8. Cederborg, A., Orbach, Y., Sternberg, K. J., & Lamb, M. E. (2000). Investigative interviews of child witnesses in Sweden. Child Abuse and Neglect, 24, 1355–1361.
9. Clark, D. C. (1971). Teaching concepts in the classroom:Aset of prescriptions derived from experimental research. Journal of Educational Psychology Monograph, 62, 253–278.
10. Craig, R. A., Scheibe, R., Raskin, D. C., Kircher, J., & Dodd, D. (1999). Interviewer questions and content analysis of children’s statements of sexual abuse. Applied Developmental Science, 3, 77–85.
11. Dale, P. S., Loftus, E. F., & Rathbun, L. (1978). The influence of the form of the question of the eyewitness testimony of preschool children. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 74, 269–277.
12. Davies, G. M., Westcott, H. L., & Horan, N. (2000). The impact of questioning style on the content of investigative interviews with suspected child sexual abuse victims. Psychology, Crime, and Law, 6, 81–97.
13. Dent, H. R. (1982). The effects of interviewing strategies on the results of interviews with child witnesses. In A. Trankell (Ed.), Reconstructing the past: The role of psychologists in criminal trials (pp. 279–297). Stockholm: Norstedt.
14. Dent, H. R. (1986). An experimental study of the effectiveness of different techniques of questioning mentally handicapped child witnesses. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 25, 13–17.
15. Dent, H. R., & Stephenson, G. M. (1979). An experimental study of the effectiveness of different techniques of questioning child witnesses. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 18, 41–51.
16. Frayer, D. A., & Klausmeier, H. J. (1971). Variables on concept learning: Task variables. Madison: Wisconsin Research and Development Center for Cognitive Learning.
17. Freeman, K. A., & Morris, T. L. (1999). Investigative interviewing with children: Evaluation of the effectiveness of a training program for child protective service workers. Child Abuse and Neglect, 23, 701–713.
18. Goodman, G. S.,&Aman C. (1990). Children’s use of anatomically detailed dolls to recount an event. Child Development, 61, 1859–1871.
19. Goodman, G. S., Bottoms, B. L., Schwartz-Kenney, B. M., & Rudy, L. (1991). Children’s testimony about a stressful event: Improving children’s reports. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 1, 69–99.
20. Gully, S. M. (1998). The influences of self-regulation processes on learning and performance in a team training context. Dissertation Abstracts International, 58(9-B), 5175.
21. Hershkowitz I. (in press). The role of facilitative prompts in interviews of alleged sexual abuse victims. Legal and Criminological Psychology.
22. Hutcheson, G. D., Baxter, J. S., Telfer, K., & Warden, D. (1995). Child witness statement quality: Question type and errors of omission. Law and Human Behavior, 19, 631–648.
23. Jones, D. P. H. (1992). Interviewing the sexually abused child: Investigation of suspected abuse (4th ed.). London: Gaskell.
24. Lamb, M. E. (1994). The investigation of child sexual abuse: An interdisciplinary consensus statement. Child Abuse and Neglect, 18, 1021–1028.
25. Lamb, M. E., & Fauchier, A. (2001). The effects of question type on self-contradiction by children in the course of forensic interviews. Applied Cognitive Psychology 15, 483–491.
26. Lamb, M. E., Hershkowitz I., Sternberg, K. J., Boat, B., & Everson, M. D. (1996). Investigative interviews of alleged sexual abuse victims with and without anatomical dolls. Child Abuse and Neglect, 20, 1251–1259.
27. Lamb, M. E., Hershkowitz I., Sternberg, K. J., Esplin P. W., Hovav M., Manor, T., & Yudilevitch, L. (1996). Effects of investigative utterance types on Israeli children’s responses. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 19, 627–637.
28. Lamb, M. E., Sternberg, K. J.,&Esplin P. W. (1998). Conducting investigative interviews of alleged sexual abuse victims. Child Abuse and Neglect, 22, 813–823.
29. Lamb, M. E., Sternberg, K. J., & Esplin P. W. (2000). Effects of age and delay on the amount of information provided by alleged sex abuse victims in investigative interviews. Child Development, 71, 1586–1596.
30. Lamb, M. E., Sternberg, K. J., Esplin P. W., Hershkowitz I., Orbach, Y., & Hovav M. (1997). Criterion-based content analysis: A field validation study. Child Abuse and Neglect, 21, 255–264.
31. Lamb, M. E., Sternberg, K. J., Orbach, Y., Esplin P. W.,&Mitchell S. (2002). Is ongoing feedback necessary to maintain the quality of investigative interviews with allegedly abused children? Applied Developmental Science, 6, 35–41.
32. Lamb, M. E., Sternberg, K. J., Orbach, Y., Hershkowitz I.,&Esplin P. W. (1999). Forensic interviews of children. In. A. Memon & R. A. Bull (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of interviewing (pp. 253–277). New York and Chichester, England: Wiley.
33. Memorandum of Good Practice. (1992). London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.
34. Oates, K.,&Shrimpton S. (1991). Children’s memories for stressful and non-stressful events. Medical Science and Law, 31, 4–10.
35. Orbach, Y., Hershkowitz I., Lamb, M. E., Sternberg, K. J., Esplin P. W., & Horowitz, D. (2000). Assessing the value of structured protocols for forensic interviews of alleged abuse victims. Child Abuse and Neglect, 24, 733–752.
36. Orbach, Y., & Lamb, M. E. (1999). Assessing the accuracy of a child’s account of sexual abuse: A case study. Child Abuse and Neglect, 23, 91–98.
37. Orbach, Y., & Lamb, M. E. (2001). The relationship between within-interview contradictions and eliciting interviewer utterances. Child Abuse and Neglect, 25, 323–333.
38. Ornstein, P. A., Gordon, B. N., & Larus, D. M. (1992). Children’s memory for a personally experienced event: Implications for testimony. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 6, 49–60.
39. Poole, D. A., & Lamb, M. E. (1998). Investigative interviews of children: A guide for helping professionals. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
40. Raskin, D. C., & Esplin P. W. (1991). Statement validity assessment: Interview procedures and content analyses of children’s statements of sexual abuse. Behavioral Assessment, 13, 265–291.
41. Sternberg, K. J., Lamb, M. E., Davies, G. M., & Westcott, H. L. (2001). The Memorandum of Good Practice: Theory versus application. Child Abuse and Neglect, 25, 669–681.
42. Sternberg, K. J., Lamb, M. E., & Hershkowitz I. (1996). Child sexual abuse investigations in Israel. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 23, 322–337.
43. Sternberg, K. J., Lamb, M. E., Hershkowitz I., Esplin P. W., Redlich A.,&Sunshine N. (1996). The relation between investigative utterance types and the informativeness of child witnesses. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 17, 439–451.
44. Sternberg, K. J., Lamb, M. E., Hershkowitz I., Yudilevitch, L., Orbach, Y., Esplin P. W.,&Hovav M. (1997). Effects of introductory style on children’s abilities to describe experiences of sexual abuse. Child Abuse and Neglect, 21, 1133–1146.
45. Sternberg, K. J., Lamb, M. E., Orbach, Y., Esplin P. W.,&Mitchell S. (2001). Use of a structured investigative protocol enhances young children’s responses to free recall prompts in the course of forensic interviews. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 997–1005.
46. Stevenson, K. M., Leung, P., & Cheung, K. M. (1992). Competency-based evaluation of interviewing skills in child sexual abuse cases. Social Work Research and Abstracts, 28, 11–16.
47. Sweet, R. C. (1966). Educational attainment and attitude toward school as a function of feedback in the form of teachers’ written comments. Madison: Wisconsin Research and Development Center for Cognitive Learning.
48. Walker, N., & Hunt, J. S. (1998). Interviewing child victim-witnesses: How you ask is what you get. In C. P. Thompson, D. J. Herrman, J. D. Read, D. Bruce, D. Payne,& M. P. Toglia (Eds.), Eyewitness memory: Theoretical and applied perspectives (pp. 55–87). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
49. Warren, A. R., & McGough, L. S. (1996). Research on children’s suggestibility: Implications for the investigative interview. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 23, 269–303.
50. Warren, A. R., Woodall, C. E., Thomas, M., Nunno, M., Keeney, J. M., Larson, S. M.,&Stadfeld J. A. (1999). Assessing the effectiveness of a training program for interviewing child witnesses. Applied Developmental Science, 3, 128–135.
51. Yuille, J. C.,& Cutshall J. L. (1986). Acase study of eyewitnessmemory of a crime. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71, 291–301.
52. Yuille, J. C., Hunter, R., Joffe, R., & Zaparniuk, J. (1993). Interviewing children in sexual abuse cases. In G. S. Goodman & B. L. Bottoms (Eds.), Child victims, child witnesses: Understanding and improving testimony (pp. 95–115). New York: Guilford.