New Research on Child Witnesses

Résumé du livre

This special issue is divided into two parts to accommodate the breadth of the scholarship about child witnesses that the editors wish to address.

The majority of studies described in this special issue illustrate the ways in which variations in the interview process affect the amount and accuracy of the information obtained. The comprehensibility of the statements by both children and their interlocutors; their willingness to request clarification; their implicit understanding of their partners' motivations and expectations; the specific form of the questions posed; the type of demands made of the children's memory; and variations in the children's motivations to be informative, deceptive, or compliant with the interrogators' implicit or explicit expectations all affect the validity and reliability of the information obtained.

The reports included in both issues illustrate the complexity of the communication process as well as the steps that must be taken to improve the communication between children and forensic interviewers, the potential for contamination or misunderstanding, minimize and facilitate the evaluation of the resulting information.