EFFECTS OF INVESTIGATIVE UTTERANCE TYPES ON ISRAELI CHILDRENS RESPONSES

This field study is concerned with the effect of interviewing style on children's reports of sexual abuse. Detailed psycholinguistic analyse s of 22 front-line interviews of 5- to 11-year-old Israeli children by a number of interviewers focused on the length (number of words) and richness (number of new details) provided in responses to different ty pes of utterances by the interviewers. As predicted, open-ended invita tions yielded significantly longer and more detailed responses than di rective, leading, or suggestive utterances, regardless of age. The you nger children provided briefer and less detailed responses, however. T hese findings underscore the value of open-ended prompts in investigat ive interviews.