EFFECTS OF INTRODUCTORY STYLE ON CHILDRENS ABILITIES TO DESCRIBE EXPERIENCES OF SEXUAL ABUSE

Objective: The goal of this study was to evaluate the relative effecti veness of two rapport-building techniques for eliciting information fr om children who made allegations of sexual abuse. Method: Fourteen int erviewers conducted 51 investigations of child sexual abuse with child ren ranging from 4.5 to 12.9 years of age. In 25 of the investigations , interviewers used a script including many open-ended utterances to e stablish rapport, whereas in 26 of the investigations the same intervi ewers used a rapport-building script involving many direct questions. Both rapport-building scripts took about 7 minutes to complete. All ch ildren were asked the same open-ended question to initiate the substan tive phase of the interview. Results: Children who had been trained in the open-ended condition provided 2 1/2 times as many details and wor ds in response to the first substantive utterance as did children in t he direct introduction condition. Children in the open-ended condition continued to respond more informatively to open-ended utterances in t he later (unscripted) portion of the interview. Two-thirds of the chil dren mentioned the core details of the incident in their responses to the first substantive utterance and a further 20% mentioned core detai ls more vaguely. Conclusions: These results demonstrate that children respond more informatively to an open-ended invitation when they have previously been trained to answer such questions rather than more focu sed questions. These results demonstrate the sensitivity of children t o the goals and expectations of forensic interviewers. Structured inte rview protocols also increase the amount of information provided by yo ung interviewees. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.