Guide to questioning children during the free-narrative phase of an investigative interview

The inability of professionals to maintain the use of open-ended questions in the free-narrative phase of investigative interviews with children has been a major problem around the globe. The current paper addresses this concern by describing the key principles underlying the elicitation of free-narrative accounts and practical suggestions for formulating questions. The paper focuses on interviewing children in the early- and middle-childhood years and commences with a definition of the term “free-narrative account” and a description of how such accounts typically develop in children. A description is then provided of the four key characteristics of a good question in the free-narrative interview phase. These include (a) simple language, (b) absence of specific details or coercive techniques, (c) flexibility on the part of the interviewee to choose what details will be reported, and (d) encouragement of an elaborate response. Finally, the process of eliciting a narrative account is briefly described, including examples of questions that adhere to the four characteristics listed above.

Visual narratives in the children's picture story book : an investigation of the extent to which the formal structuring of a visual narrative retrieves a pastiche of past experiences and images which in turn shapes and redirects the story

Throughout this research, the notion that illustrators of children's books embark on two types of activity has been reinforced at every turn. On one hand the artist acknowledges the external world by organising images of actions and events in the contexts of place and time. This process involves bringing ideas into a physical form and demands the structuring of characters, settings, and story development. Planning and decisions are informed by imperatives that recognise the need for conventions of articulation and communication to a particular target audience. These then become a mayor priority of bookmaking and are constantly impacted on by publishers1 demands and ethical constraints. The other perspective sees the illustrator as expresser where the core of visual narratives for children celebrates the potency of imagination. Here dreams, fantasies, memories and the unconscious become the conduits to shaping sequential images. The artist is engaged not simply in visually telling a story, but rather telling facets of his or her own story. This exegesis traces the evolution of my own picture story book Eddie's Fantastic Fortnight published by Five Mile Press Publishers in tandem with the insights and reflections of five of Australia's most prominent illustrators. It examines whether the structure invested in a visual narrative liberates expressive response, ascribing to the premise that bookmaking plays an informing role to imagination. Equally it adopts the alternative position which asserts that the essence of children's books is indeed fantasy, memory and dreams. This proposition views imagination and inspiration as the primary catalyst around which illustrators build their narrative. In the often lengthy processes of bookmaking, these considerations constantly shift. I have attempted to explore and reveal these mobile and ever changing priorities, not only in my own work, but also through leading exponents in the field.

Factors impacting story-grammar production in children's narrative accounts of events

This thesis examined factors associated with increased story-grammar production in police interviews with children who allege abuse. These factors included the child's age, the type of question asked and the nature of the event experienced by the child. Recommendation for improving story-grammar, which in turn enhances witness credibility, were discussed. The portfolio explored how an awareness of specific responsivity factors can inform treatment recommendations and execution in rehabilitation of offenders with substance use issues. Four case studies are presented in illustration.

Does the cognitive interview promote the coherence of narrative accounts in children with and without an intellectual disability?

We examined whether the cognitive interview (CI) procedure enhanced the coherence of narrative accounts provided by children with and without intellectual disabilities (ID), matched on chronological age. Children watched a videotaped magic show; one day later, they were interviewed using the CI or a structured interview (SI). Children interviewed using the CI reported more correct details than those interviewed using the SI. Additionally, children interviewed using the CI reported more contextual background details, more logically ordered sequences, more temporal markers, and fewer inconsistencies in their stories than those interviewed using the SI. However, the CI did not increase the number of story grammar elements compared with the SI. Overall children interviewed with the CI told better stories than those interviewed with the SI. This finding provided further support for the effectiveness of the CI with vulnerable witnesses, particularly children with ID.

Does extensive free narrative prompting minimise the effect of mental reinstatement on children's recall of events?

The effect of mental reinstatement on children's recall is unclear. One factor that may impact its effectiveness is the degree to which interviewers prompt children during an interview. We examined whether interviewers’ degree of narrative prompting moderated the effect of mental context reinstatement during children's recall of a staged event. Younger and older children were interviewed 7–10 days after the event. Half were told to mentally reinstate the context and half were not. In a fully crossed design, half also received extended narrative prompting during the interview and half did not. We predicted that extensive narrative prompting should reduce any observable benefit of mental reinstatement, especially for older children. However, mental reinstatement had no beneficial effect on recall performance. It is possible that methodological differences, low statistical power, and a small effect size may have reduced the observable benefit of mental reinstatement in comparison to other studies. Overall, the findings of this study suggest that until further research can clearly define the parameters in which mental reinstatement is useful, and therefore produce findings with greater consistency across studies, there is little support for its use in investigative interviews with child witnesses.

Quality of pre-school children's pretend play and subsequent development of semantic organization and narrative re-telling skills

Purpose: This study investigated if the quality of pre-school children's pretend play predicted their semantic organization and narrative re-telling ability when they were in early primary school. It was hypothesized that the elaborateness of a child's play and the child's use of symbols in play were predictors of their semantic organization and narrative re-tell scores of the School Age Oral Language Assessment. Method: Forty-eight children were assessed using the Child-Initiated Pretend Play Assessment when they were aged 4-5 years. Three-to-five years after this assessment their semantic organization and narrative re-telling skills were assessed. Results: Results indicate that the elaborateness of a child's play and their ability to use symbols was predictive of semantic organization skills. Use of symbols in play was the strongest play predictor of narrative re-telling skills. The quality of a pre-school child's ability to elaborate complex sequences in pretend play and use symbols predicted up to 20% of a child's semantic organization and narrative re-telling skills up to 5 years later. Conclusions: The study provides evidence that the quality of pretend play in 4-5 year olds is important for semantic organization and narrative re-telling abilities in the school-aged child.

The effects of practice on children's ability to apply ground rules in a narrative interview

Despite the widespread use of ground rules in forensic interview guidelines, it is unknown whether children retain and apply these rules throughout narrative interviews. We evaluated the capacity of 260 five- to nine-year-olds to utilize three ground rules. At the beginning of the interview all children heard the rules; half also practiced them. Children then responded to open-ended prompts about a repeated laboratory event and were assessed for their application of the rules. Logistic regressions revealed that practice only benefitted the use of the "don't know" rule. Although the children accurately answered "don't understand" and "correct me" practice questions, practice appeared to give no greater benefit than just hearing the rules. Results suggest that the current format of ground rule practice in interview guidelines is appropriate for the "don't know" rule, but the other rules may require more extensive practice with this age group. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Effects of parent and child behaviours on overweight and obesity in infants and young children from disadvantaged backgrounds: systematic review with narrative synthesis

BACKGROUND: Despite the crucial need to develop targeted and effective approaches for obesity prevention in children most at risk, the pathways explaining socioeconomic disparity in children's obesity prevalence remain poorly understood.

METHODS: We conducted a systematic review of the literature that investigated causes of weight gain in children aged 0-5 years from socioeconomically disadvantaged or Indigenous backgrounds residing in OECD countries. Major electronic databases were searched from inception until December 2015. Key words identified studies addressing relationships between parenting, child eating, child physical activity or sedentary behaviour and child weight in disadvantaged samples.

RESULTS: A total of 32 articles met the inclusion criteria. The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool quality rating for the studies ranged from 25 % (weak) to 100 % (strong). Studies predominantly reported on relationships between parenting and child weight (n = 21), or parenting and child eating (n = 12), with fewer (n = 8) investigating child eating and weight. Most evidence was from socio-economically disadvantaged ethnic minority groups in the USA. Clustering of diet, weight and feeding behaviours by socioeconomic indicators and ethnicity precluded identification of independent effects of each of these risk factors.

CONCLUSIONS: This review has highlighted significant gaps in our mechanistic understanding of the relative importance of different aspects of parent and child behaviours in disadvantaged population groups.

Guidelines for teachers to elicit detailed and accurate narrative accounts from children

This paper provides interview strategies for teachers who talk to children about serious events, including bullying, truancy, and suspected maltreatment. With regard to the latter, teachers are among the largest group of professionals reporting child abuse, but also tend to evince low substantiation rates. We review research on best practice interviewing, with a focus on its application in school settings. Interview phases are described chronologically, with interview excerpts included for illustrative purposes. Gaps in knowledge about the appropriateness of techniques are highlighted, and recommendations for future research specifically within the school setting are made. It is proposed that teachers receive basic training in best practice interviewing so that, when required, they can confidently ask about difficulties in children's lives while minimizing the potential for contamination of children's responses.

The effect of contextual cues on children`s ability to remember an occurence of a repeated event

Purpose. This study examined the usefulness of contextual cues in enhancing the accuracy of children's narrative accounts of an occurrence of a repeated event.

Method. Children aged 6 to 7 years took part in the same staged event four times whereby 16 target details varied in each occurrence (e.g. the colour of a cloak varied each time). Three days later, the children's free recall of the final occurrence was elicited. This occurrence was identified in one of two ways. Either it was identified via the temporal term 'last', or else the term 'last' was combined with a feature related to the environmental context or setting that was unique to the occurrence (i.e., the interviewer referred to a new object that was worn throughout the occurrence or a new person who carried out the event). For each condition, performance was compared to that of children who experienced the event only once.

Results. Children's memory of details specific to the target occurrence was better after the single than the repeated event. However for both event types, children who were given the contextual and temporal cue performed better than those who were given the temporal cue only. The benefit of using a contextual cue did not result in an increase in errors.

Conclusion. Contextual cues (generated by an interviewer) can facilitate children's recall of an occurrence of an event. However, further research needs to determine whether this finding would generalize to a more practical situation where the child (rather than the interviewer) generates the cues.

The effect of intellectual disability on children's recall of an event across different question types

This research examined the performance of 80 children aged 9–12 years with either a mild and moderate intellectual disability when recalling an innocuous event that was staged in their school. The children actively participated in a 30-min magic show, which included 21 specific target items. The first interview (held 3 days after the magic show) provided false and true biasing information about these 21 items. The second interview (held the following day) was designed to elicit the children's recall of the target details using the least number of specific prompts possible. The children's performance was compared with that of 2 control groups; a group of mainstream children matched for mental age and a group of mainstream children matched for chronological age. Overall, this study showed that children with either a mild or moderate intellectual disability can provide accurate and highly specific event-related information. However, their recall is less complete and less clear in response to free-narrative prompts and less accurate in response to specific questions when compared to both the mainstream age-matched groups. The implications of the findings for legal professionals and researchers are discussed.

Police officers' and legal professionals' perceptions regarding how children are, and should be, questioned about repeated abuse

This study explored the perceptions of police officers and legal professionals (i.e., prosecutors, defence lawyers and a judge) about (a) what particularisation is, (b) the type of information that is required for particularisation to occur, and (c) how particularisation is best achieved in cases of repeated child abuse. The professionals' perceptions (all experts in this area) were elicited via individual in-depth semi-structured interviews. While all participants acknowledged the importance of particularisation, the views of the police officers varied in several important ways to those of the other professionals. Overall, the police officers perceived that highly specific details (such as the location, date and time of the offence) are essential for particularisation to occur, and that maximising the number of separate offences and specific details about each offence increases the chance of successful prosecution. In contrast, the legal professionals perceived that the primacy goal of the police officers should be to elicit a free-narrative account of one or more offences. A high proportion of specific questions was perceived to negatively impact on the child's credibility by contaminating the evidence. The implications of these findings are discussed.

The importance of using open-ended questions when interviewing children

In addition to making reference to best practices, already known, concerning the conduct of interviews with child victims of sexual abuse, the author describes some of the questions of development that must be made and the four benefits of free narrative. Despite the qualities of this type of approach, surveys show that professionals do not get the research, as a rule, free of narrative descriptions by children and that interviews tend to contain the short answer questions, with few breaks and an excessive number of closed questions and trick.According to trainers, experts in this field, there should be greater recognition of the interview as a forensic specialist skills and promote themselves to more effective supervision and monitoring of the forensic interview at work.