CHILD WITNESS STATEMENT QUALITY - QUESTION TYPE AND ERRORS OF OMISSION

Use of general questions in child witness interviews often limits the completeness of young children's recall. In this study experienced pro fessionals interviewed 5-6 year olds and 8-9 year olds ''as they would normally'' about live events witnessed by the children. Interviewers' spontaneous use of general and specific questions was assessed, as we re the effects of these question types on the children's recall. A mai n result was that the younger children would frequently fail to answer general questions but would then provide information relevant to thes e same questions later in the interview. Use of specific questions in these relatively naturalistic interviews did not necessarily improve t he overall completeness of younger children's recall, contrary to some previous findings, although, in line with previous findings, such que stioning reduced overall accuracy rates. These results highlighted the scale of the problem of ''omission errors'' in young children's recal l. Implications for the use of general questions by professionals who interview child witnesses are discussed.