NARRATIVE ELABORATION - TEST OF A NEW PROCEDURE FOR INTERVIEWING CHILDREN

Because young children provide incomplete accounts of the past and ten d to acquiesce to leading questions, procedures are needed to help the m describe past events fully, without contaminating memory. This study tests the efficacy of ''narrative elaboration,'' an innovative proced ure designed to expand children's spontaneous reports of past events, reducing the need for leading questions. One hundred thirty-two childr en from 2 age groups (7-8 years and 10-11 years) were assigned randoml y to 1 of 3 preparation conditions: (a) narrative elaboration interven tion, (b) instruction-based intervention, and (c) control group. After participating in a staged activity and subsequent preparation session s, children were interviewed about the activity. Children in the narra tive elaboration condition demonstrated a 53% improvement in spontaneo us recall over the control group, without compromising accuracy. Young er children using the narrative elaboration procedure performed at the level of older children in the control group. Discussion centers on i mplications for interviewing child witnesses and preparing them for co urtroom examination.