Child Suggestibility and interviewing Techniques

1. Child Suggestibility and interviewing Techniques Michael J Panella, M.D., J.D.

2. General Suggestibility Factors Personal Traits 1. Age 2. Cognitive 3. Motivational Situational Issues 1. Suggestiveness of interview 2. Parental/peer pressure

3. Personal Traits relationship to Interview Techniques • There is a substantial correlation between interrogative suggestibility and several personality variables such as anxiety, intelligence, field dependence and self-esteem (Gudjonsson, The Psychology of Interrogations, Confessions and Testimony. Chichester: Wiley 1992) • Habitually anxious and inhibited persons with weak cognitive ability tend to be especially vulnerable to suggestive interviewing

4. Suggestive Interview Techniques 1. Leading questions 2. Conformity pressure 3. Repeat questions implying negative reinforcement 4. Threats/promises 5. Adjectives (i.e. brutal looking stranger) 6. Intonation (stress on certain words) 7. Pragmatic particles (yet, indeed, even) 1. Hypnosis 2. Props such as anatomically correct dolls 3. Gestures 4. Facial expressions 5. Persons present VERBAL NON-VERBAL Endres, The Suggestibility of the Child Witness: The Role of Individual Differences and their Assessment, J. of Credibility Assessment and Witness Psychology 1 (2) 44-67 (1997)

5. Possible Interviewing Problems With Children • Use of leading or misleading questions • Questions repeated several times in same interview • Asking a child to imagine that an event occurred or visualize an alleged event • Positive or negative reinforcement • Suggestive influences over repeated time causing actual memory distortion Finnila et al., Validity of a Test of Children’s Suggestibility for Predicting Responses to Two Interview Situations Differing in their Degree of Suggestiveness, 85 J. Experimental Child Psychology 32 (2003)

6. Guidelines on interviewing children • Avoid bias; explore alternative hypotheses or explanations • Videotape interview • Interview child alone unless too young to separate from parent • Rapport building from beginning • Practice interview (open questions about neutral topics) • Provide ground rules Wakefield, Guidelines on Investigatory Interviewing of Children: What is the Consensus in the Scientific Community? Am J. Forensic Psychology 24 (3), 57-74 (2006)

7. Guidelines on interviewing children-continued • Ask open questions and encourage a free narrative from the child • Pair specific questions with open end prompts • Avoid pressure, coercion, suggestion by giving the child information, asking leading questions and repeating questions • Avoid play, fantasy and imagining • Avoid reinforcing specific response Wakefield, Guidelines on Investigatory Interviewing of Children: What is the Consensus in the Scientific Community? Am J. Forensic Psychology 24 (3), 57-74 (2006)

8. Six Suggestibility Problems facing Courts • Suggestibility is not limited to preschool children • Suggestibility is not limited to leading questions • Suggestibility is not confined to formal interviews • Difficult to identify particular children most susceptible to suggestion • Difficult to train children to resist potentially suggestive questions or to “Gate Out” previously suggested information • It is difficult to train interviewers to avoid suggestive techniques and to use techniques designed to promote accuracy Warren and Marsil, Why Children’s Suggestibility Remains a Serious Concern, 65-WTR Law & Contemp. Probs. 127 (2002)