Ann Dell Duncan, Ph.D., J.D.Wells Hively, Ph.D.

March 6, 2009

Looking for Understanding

• Suggestibility• Use of an expert to analyze the behaviors

of the interviewer during a CAC interview• Surviving the Daubert Hearing• Analysis of protocols for structuring

interviews including “Finding Words”

SUGGESTIBILITY OF CHILDREN

SUGGESTIBILITY OF CHILDREN

• History: we found more than a dozen review articles, from Ceci & Bruck, 1993 to London & Kulkofsky, 2008 (see handout “Summary of Scientific Information” and reference list on the web at duncanhively.com).

• Current Status: Research and theory have moved from assessing the impact of specific suggestive elements of an interview, e.g. frequency of leading questions v. open-ended questions, to investigating overall factors that guide the interview, e.g. interviewer expectations, interviewer bias and interviewer consideration of alternative explanations for a child’s or a parent’s concerns.

SUGGESTIBILITY OF CHILDREN

WHAT IS GOING ON?

It may all be in the eye of the beholder: when is a touch just a

touch, or sometimes it is just a cigar

FORENSIC INTERVIEWSA set of systematic procedures where the interview creates the atmosphere where a child can relay accurate information, if they

are ready to do so.A forensic interview is not therapy, not clinical investigation, not reassurance or social worker directivesA forensic interviewer is trained to conduct these interviews in neutral stance, developmentally sensitive, and tests alternative hypotheses.

Necessary Information Before Talking to the Child

• The basics:– Names of family members– Grade level and school performance– Current concerns– Psychological qualities– History of traumas– Disclosure

• Where, when, conditions, circumstances, frequency. Time interval between disclosure and interview

• Time line of other interviews and critical events

The Behaviors of the ChildEmotional, intellectual, language age of child dictates how interview is to be conducted. Motivation of child as representative for an adult must be explored.

The Behaviors of the Interviewer

• Calm demeanor• Practice the ground rules: tell truth, say “I don’t

know”, clarify confusions• Open ended questions• Follow the narrative of the child• Refocus for additional information• Avoid dolls, games, drawings, and distractions• Use a science based standard protocol for best

results i.e. Michigan or NICHD

Linguistic Competency of the Child

• Determine concepts of number, colors, prepositions, verbs, adverbs

• See how the child handles the following when describing non-abuse related events:– Use of “some”– Saying “yes” or “no” infrequently– What does a “why” question generate– Any concept of before/after/under/over/on top

EXAMPLES FROM DEBRA POOLEpoole1da@cmich.edu

• You have to give children permission to correct you or ask for clarification.

• Children may repeat what you say just to keep the conversation going

• Children may incorrectly incorporate new information the interviewer embeds in questions

• Children often don’t understand kinship terms and other “shifters” and “deictics” ( pronouns)

• Children tend to drift off topic

NON-SUGGESTIVE QUESTION TYPES

• Free Narrative: “Tell me everything about when you go to grandpa’s house.”

• Open-ended questions: “You said you had to poop and you were crying. Tell me all about that, from the beginning to the end.”

• Specific, non-leading questions: What did grandpa do when you were crying?

• Closed, multiple-choice questions: When you went to the hospital, did you talk to a doctor or a to nurse or to someone else?

SUGGESTIVE QUESTION TYPES• Yes-No Questions: “Did grandpa take your panties off?”• Explicitly Leading Questions: “Grandpa took your panties off,

didn’t he?”• Imaginary questions: “If grandpa took your panties off, what

would you do?”• Other forms of suggestion:– Repeated questioning - not accepting “no” for an answer– Differential reinforcement – You’re doing great” or

“You’re not answering my questions very well.”– Stereotyping – “Sometimes old men like grandpa do bad

things to children like you”– Peer pressure – “Some other kids told me that your

grandpa took their panties off. Did that happen to you?”

SOME KEY SUGGESTIBILITY STUDIES

• Garvin et al. (2000) – Suggestive questions about children’s memories of plausible and bizarre events, plus differential reinforcement of children’s answers (“that’s great”, “you’re not doing very well”) produced 35% assent to plausible, 52% to bizarre events that children did not actually observe. These false memories persisted into neutral interviews two weeks later.

REPEATED INTERVIEWS

• Bruck et al. (2002) Four repeated interviews (once a week for four weeks) using a combination of suggestive techniques (leading questions, peer pressure, imagining, encouragement and praise for talking about the event, disapproval for not talking about it, and repeated questioning,) caused nearly all the children to say that they had experienced certain events whether they had or not.

REPEATED QUESTIONS

• Poole and White (1991 and 1993) Repeated open-ended questions didn’t influence children’s accuracy, but repeated yes-no questions caused pre-school children to change their original answers.

• With the passage of time (2 years) children’s answers to yes-no questions changed significantly, but their answers to open- ended questions did not.

ALL AGES SUSCEPTIBLE

• Geddie et al. (2000) Age appears to be the single best predictor of suggestibility with pre-schoolers the most susceptible, but older children are also significantly susceptible under conditions of poor interviewing procedures, motivation to misrepresent, or “me too itus” a disease that tends to strike the young adolescent girl when she wants to join the drama of a life event.

KIDS TALKING TO EACH OTHER CAN GENERATE SUGGESTIBILITY

• Principe et al. (2008) Rumors spread among peers led to false reports in which many children claimed to have actually seen the false events themselves.

CAN’T YOU TELL THAT THEY ARE LYING?

• Leichtman& Ceci (1995) Legal and psychological experts do no better than chance in distinguishing between children’s true and false memories when they watch videos of children telling stories that emerged as a result of suggestive techniques

LEADING QUESTIONS NOT REQUIRED TO GET ACCURATE INFORMATION

• London et al. (2005) Children who come before forensic interviewers are unlikely to deny or recant abuse in response to open-ended questions. Of children identified from the records as highly probable to have suffered abuse, 85%-96% disclosed. 5% -23% recanted.

• Therefore it isn’t necessary to press children to disclose through leading questions.

FALSE MEMORIES AREN’T RESTRICTED TO MINOR DETAILS

• Burgwyn-Bales et al. (2001) Suggestive interviews influence children’s reports not only of objective observations but also of central details to negative and painful events such as emergency room visits.

HOW LONG DOES THE EFFECT OF SUGGESTIBILITY LAST?

• London et al. (2008) Suggestive questioning affected children’s reports during unbiased interviewing following a delay of 15 months

VALID DISCLOSURES USUALLY COME EARLY

• Lamb et al. (cited in Pipe et al., eds. 2007) When the NICHD protocol is used, children who disclose abuse do so at the beginning stages of the interview under open-ended questions

Damaging Interviews

Mismatch between the questions asked and child’s ability to respond

Therefore child produces misinformation by following the lead of the contaminating interviewer who inserts material and refuses to accept the answers from the child

Once contamination established, subsequent interviews become distorted

Suggestibility• A conclusion derived from a mixture of the

following ingredients:– Mistakes in understanding the language and

intellectual level of child– Mistakes in concepts such as touching, time,

sequence of events– Mistakes in not understanding the laws of

reinforcement and selective consequences– Biased interviewing: types of questions that

produce the desired answers rather than accurate information

Role of CAC Interviewer

• Extension of police interrogation• Only interested in what, where, when• Contributes to evidence for prosecutor• Likes being on the enforcement team• Uses techniques that make conversation with

child easier: goal oriented, time shortened, not follow child’s lead

• (All interviewers have difficulty staying on protocol even when trained)

A KEY REVIEW

• Reed, D.L. (1996) Findings from research on children’s suggestibility and implications for conducting child interviews, Child Maltreatment, 1 (2) This simple, sensible article, reprinted in the ”Finding Words” curriculum, summarizes theory and research up to 1996. It is a goldmine of material for cross examination of interviewers, because most don’t follow its recommendations. Find it on Dr. Reeds web site http://www.denreed.com, (click on publications.)

Role of the Expert

Forensic Interviewing• Neutral• Follows protocol• Establishes accuracy of

information• Not invested in outcome• Checks out all alternative

hypotheses• Looks for motivation in

reporting

Clinical Interviewing• Dedicated to protecting

child• Spontaneous and works

from child center• Invested in child getting

better• Alternatives mostly

irrelevant• Provides motivation and

direct reinforcement

TASKS FOR EXPERT• Review time line prepared by attorney• Suggest additional information gathering to

establish the context of the accusations• Examine the actual interview(s)• Count frequencies of types of verbal behaviors of

interviewer, calculate percentages• Look at sequence of repeated questioning and

child’s responses• Prepare report for Court summarizing findings

and/or serve as a consultant to attorney

TIME LINE IS ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT

• Exactly what had been going on before the first concern?

• When, where and exactly what was the first concern? To whom was it first reported?

• With whom, when and where did all subsequent interviews of the child take place?

• Did the story change from one interview to the next, exactly how?

TIME LINES HAVE TIPPING POINTS

• For example:– Up to the CAC interview, mom is worried but uncertain,

thinks grandpa might have done something wrong, but there might be a mistake.

– When CAC reports reason to suspect, mom’s fears are confirmed• Puts child immediately into therapy• Cooperates with police to try to entrap grandpa

– Conflict flares and grandparents stop babysitting– As a result, by the time she is called to testify, child has

been thoroughly exposed to suggestive influences.

Daubert Challange

• Prosecutor wants to get rid of expert and rely on his/her interviewer

• States not uniform in following Crawford• About half of states allow appeal when expert

denied • Prosecutor’s grounds for Motion in Limine

include invasion of the court’s responsibilities, comments on credibility of child witness and poor science.

Daubert RequirementsCan the theory be tested and has it been? The

acceptability of the science.Have the procedures been subjected to peer review

and publication? The reliability of the application to a particular case. Is there a potential rate of error?

What are the standards used? The qualifications of the expert.

Does the technique enjoy acceptance within the scientific community? Can the methodology be applied to a particular set of facts.

Are the offerings more probative than prejudicial?

Not Using ProtocolsProtocols provide structure, reduce across interviewer variability and usually help children

A TALE OF TWO PROTOCOLS

- Michigan Forensic Interviewing Protocol- Go to www.michigan.gov/DHS and search for Forensic

Interviewing Protocol- Produced by Dr. Debra Poole and a statewide committee- Fully documented and explicated

- RATAC (Rapport, Anatomy Identification, Touch Inquiry, Abuse Scenario, Closure)- Go to www.ndaa.org/pdf/finding_words_2003.pdf- Available only through “Finding Words” training. Not

available in published form- Produced by CornerHouse and the American Prosecutors

Research Institute

• Developmentally sensitive, multipurpose, based on phased free recall – Interview environment: friendly, free of distraction– Ground rules: tell truth, don’t guess, correct the

interviewer (explain and practice)– Start with free narrative: “tell me all about…”– Follow child’s lead to question, disambiguate and

clarify– OK to close interview without indication of abuse

The RATAC Protocol

• Directive, oriented around a drawing board– Rapport: make child comfortable, talk at the

child’s level, attend to child’s developmental level and cognitive ability• Steps: 1. Draw picture of child’s face together – “who

you are”, 2. Draw family faces – “who you live with.”

– Anatomy Identification: have child identify body parts on standard anatomical pictures of same age and skin color as child

RATAC Cont’d

• Touch Inquiry (positive and negative), e.g.:– Do you get hugs and kisses?• Where on your body?

– Are there places on your body no one is supposed to touch?• Has someone touched you in those places?

Specifically designed to elicit allegations:Define the touch, who gave the child the touch,

where on the child’s body?

RATAC Cont’d Further

• Abuse Scenario (only done if interviewer gets affirmation to touch inquiry)– Details of the abusive activities• Confirm by demonstration with anatomical dolls

– Alternative hypotheses • Misunderstandings• Motivations for false allegations• Alternate perpetrators

– Closure: educate about safety

A Few Comparisons

• Michigan: makes no assumptions; puts child in control, presents interviewer as concerned but uninformed; adapts questioning to child’s narrative; follows child’s leads; avoids yes-no questions; entertains alternative hypotheses from the start.

• RATAC: cuts to the chase; puts interviewer in control, presents interviewer as knowledgeable authority, sticks to interviewer’s script; uses many yes-no questions; persists until an allegation is obtained; entertains alternative hypotheses only at the end.

A Few Conclusions

• Poole: The RATAC phases violate virtually every scientific principal about child development and interviewing (2007)

• Points of view:– Prosecutor: get the bad guy– Social worker: protect and teach the child– Defense Attorney: defend whoever is accused– Psychologist: do no harm

Additional Materials Available on web: http://www.duncanhively.com

Good Luck!