Developmental differences in children's learning and use of forensic ground rules during an interview about an experienced event.

Children often answer questions when they do not have the requisite knowledge or when they do not understand them. We examined whether ground rules instruction-to say "I don't know," to tell the truth, and to correct the interviewer when necessary-assisted children in applying those rules during an interview about a past event and whether doing so was associated with more accurate accounts. We compared children with intellectual disabilities (mild or moderate severity, n = 44, 7-12 years) with 3 groups of typically developing children (2 matched for mental age, and 1 for chronological age, n = 55, 4-12 years) on their understanding of 3 ground rules, their use of these rules in an interview, and their accuracy in recalling a personally experienced event. Many children were able to demonstrate proficiency with the rules following simple instruction but others required additional teaching. Children applied the rules sparingly in the interview. Their scores on the practice trials of each rule were unrelated to each other, and to the use of the rules in context. Their developmental level was significantly related to both of these skills. Regression models showed that developmental level was the best predictor of children's accuracy when they recounted their experience during the interview but that use of responses consistent with the rules, in conjunction with developmental level, predicted accurate resistance to suggestive questions. Future research should identify how best to prepare children of different ages and cognitive abilities to answer adults' questions appropriately. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Narrative skill and testimonial accuracy in typically developing children and those with intellectual disabilities.

Children must describe maltreatment coherently for their testimony to be influential in court. We know little about how well children with intellectual disabilities (CWID) describe their experiences relative to typically developing (TD) children, despite CWID's vulnerability to maltreatment. We investigated children's reports of an experienced event and compared coherence in CWID (mild to moderate impairment: 7-11 years) with TD children matched for mental (4-10 years) or chronological age (7-11 years). All children included important markers of narrative coherence in their reports. Children with lower mental ages, particularly those with an intellectual disability, included fewer markers of narrative coherence in their reports than children with higher mental ages. Individual markers of narrative coherence, particularly recall of content, predicted accuracy of testimony and resistance to suggestion even when disability and mental age were taken into account. These findings highlight the importance of helping children to describe their experiences coherently.

Preserving the Past: An Early Interview Improves Delayed Event Memory in Children With Intellectual Disabilities.

The influence of an early interview on children's (N = 194) later recall of an experienced event was examined in children with mild and moderate intellectual disabilities (CWID; 7-12 years) and typically developing (TD) children matched for chronological (7-12 years) or mental (4-9 years) age. Children previously interviewed were more informative, more accurate, and less suggestible. CWID (mild) recalled as much information as TD mental age matches, and were as accurate as TD chronological age matches. CWID (moderate) recalled less than TD mental age matches but were as accurate. Interviewers should elicit CWID's recall as early as possible and consider developmental level and severity of impairments when evaluating eyewitness testimony.

The influences of delay and severity of intellectual disability on event memory in children.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the ability of children with intellectual disabilities to give reliable accounts of personally experienced events, considering the effects of delay, severity of disability, and the types of interview prompt used. METHOD: In a between-subjects design, we compared children with intellectual disabilities (7-12 years) that fell in either the mild-borderline range (n = 46) or the moderate range (n = 35) and typically developing children matched for either chronological age (7-12 years; n = 60) or mental age (4-9 years; n = 65) with respect to memories of an interactive event about which they were interviewed after either a short (1-week) or long (6-month) delay. Children were interviewed using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Investigative Interview Protocol (Lamb, Hershkowitz, Orbach, & Esplin, 2008) to elicit their recall of the event and were then asked a series of highly suggestive questions to allow both their reliability and suggestibility to be examined. RESULTS: The children with mild intellectual disabilities were as able as their mental age matches, whereas children with more severe cognitive impairments were qualitatively different across the various competencies examined. However, even children with more severe impairments were highly accurate in this supportive interview context. CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate that children with intellectual disabilities can be valuable informants when forensically interviewed and can provide clear guidance about the ways in which they should be interviewed.