Effects Of Domestic Violence And Evaluation Of Children

Child Health And Human Development

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

One program of research has involved the development and assessment of techniques for enhancing the informativeness of child witnesses and for evaluating the credibility of their accounts. Several studies have confirmed that open-ended questions elicit longer and more detailed responses than more focused questions. Information elicited in response to open-ended prompts of recall memory is also more likely to be accurate in both analog and forensic contexts. Our findings have strengthened the generalizability of the results obtained in many laboratory studies to forensic context. In collaboration with investigative agencies in the US, UK, and Israel, we have shown that interviewers can increase the length and richness of children's accounts, regardless of children's ages, by following SSED-designed interview protocols. Use of the NICHD protocol dramatically increased the amount of information retrieved from 4- to 13-year-old alleged victims using open-ended prompts. Recent analyses show that this is the case even when children are interviewed about events that occurred either months or years earlier. There are important age differences in the types of information that children provide, however. For example, ongoing analyses of interviews show steady increases with age in the amount and quality of information children provide about the timing of events. This research has provided unique insight into children's developing appreciation of temporal information about experienced events, whereas most research on the understanding of time has involved laboratory research. A study exploring references to temporal attributes made by alleged victims and interviewers in context of court interviews is currently under way in collaboration with Friedman and Lyon. our research has also shown that young witnesses recall as much information in total, as well as in response to open-ended prompts, as alleged victims do. Alleged suspectstend to be more reluctant, but those who agree to talk provide as much information about their experiences as age mates who are alleged victims. Comparisons of victims' and offenders' accounts of the same incidents are currently under way. Other field experiments has shown that the introduction of gender-neutral anatomical drawings in the context of protocol-guided interviews also help children provide substantial numbers of additional details about the alleged incidents of abuse. The gender-neutral drawings were especially productive when shown to young (4- to 7-year-old) children. Because we do not know whether the reported information is accurate, we have initiated research, in collaboration with Lancaster University, designed to assess the accuracy of reports provided by young children about both staged experienced events and fictitious events, using the NICHD Protocol and gender neutral drawings. This first laboratory test of the protocol is expected to determine the most effective means of eliciting accurate information in forensic context. In other ongoing field research, we are exploring the effects of different types of interviewers' suggestive prompts and of repeated interviews on children's responses as well as the extent to which use of the protocol facilitates decisions and interventions designed to prosecute offenders and protect children. Because many children do not disclose suspected abuse when interviewed, we are also exploring case characteristics and the dynamics of interviews both with children who do make allegations and those who do not or only make allegations reluctantly. Our aim is to identify the factors that lead children to not report abuse that they actually experienced. These studies should also help us develop procedures that can be implemented nonsuggestively in forensic settings in order to enhance the sensitivity and specificity of conclusions drawn from investigative interviews. A book is currently in preparation, based on the proceedings of the international conference on delayed and nondisclosure of child sexual abuse, convened by the SSED staff and collaborators in August 2003. Another program of research is concerned with the effects of child and spouse abuse on the development of children and adolescents. In both middle childhood and adolescence, family violence appears to affect the offsprings' views of their parents. Children and adolescents feel less closely attached to parents who have abused them, whereas spouse abuse has no apparent effects on the children's attachments to either parent. Effects were greater on adolescents' reports of attachment to mothers than to their fathers, irrespective of perpetrator, and more recent family experiences had clearer effects on children's behavior problems and perceptions of their parents than earlier experiences did. Research has focused on the effects of abuse on victims of parental physical abuse, witnesses of inter-parental physical abuse, abused witnesses (victims and witnesses), and no-violence controls. The relationship between concurrent behavior problems and form of abuse varied by informant and study phase, although they were strongest for children in the victims and abused witnesses group and when based on children as the informants. The findings show the need to consider age and form of abuse when investigating the effects of domestic violence on children's behavior problems. A data collection instrument (Child Maltreatment Log), designed to help researchers collect systematic information about neglect, physical and sexual abuse, exposure to domestic violence, psychological maltreatment, and socio-demographic conditions which often co-occur with child maltreatment has been developed by SSED researchers in collaboration with the Office of Child Abuse and Neglect, the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Department of Justice. The computerized format permits individual researchers to create higher order constructs as needed and preserve categorized information for use by interested researchers. Following independent pilot tests and modifications, the programs is currently under further testing at our lab in collaboration with our colleagues at the University of Iowa.