Tell me…

NCA n.e.t. Training
June 14, 2012
Presented by:
Patti Toth, J.D.
Child Forensic Interviews:
Differences, Debates and
Best Practices
WA State Criminal Justice
Training Commission
ptoth@cjtc.state.wa.us
What We’ll Cover
 Compare
key components of
NICHD & RATAC approaches
 Highlights of some recent
research
 Areas of agreement and
difference in interview practice
“Forensic”
Investigative
• Relating to, used in, or
appropriate for courts of law
• Relating to the use of science
or technology in the
investigation and establishment
of facts or evidence in a court
of law
1
“Evidence-Based”
APSAC 2002 Guidelines
on Investigative Interviewing
The Child Interview
“There is no single correct method for
conducting child investigative interviews
in cases of alleged abuse.”
“A number of interview protocols… but
there is currently little empirical
support for one protocol over another.”
(true in 2002, but not today)
2 General Approaches
Incorporates Early Use of Media:
RATAC
Emphasis on Structured
Verbal Narratives:
NICHD
Where are we
today?
Elements
•Rapport
•Anatomy Identification
•Touch Inquiry
•Abuse Scenario
•Closure
2
3
• Developed by Michael Lamb &
colleagues
• Structured protocol designed to
implement research-based best
practices & emphasize freerecall techniques
• Utilized in various locations in
the UK, Canada, France, the
US, & throughout Israel
The NICHD Protocol
A structured forensic interview protocol improves the
quality and informativeness of investigative interviews
with children: A review of research using the NICHD
Investigative Interview Protocol,”
Child Abuse & Neglect, Vol. 31, 11-12, Nov.-Dec. ‘07,
pp. 1201-1231; Michael E. Lamb, et. al.
Most researched in the world:
over 40,000 real-life interviews
Tell Me What
Happened: Structured
Investigative
Interviews of Child
Victims and Witnesses
Michael E. Lamb, Irit
Hershkowitz,, Yael
Orbach, Phillip W. Esplin
Wiley Series in
Psychology of Crime,
Policing and Law
Sept. 2008
Phases
• Introductory
• Rapport-Building
• Training in Episodic Memory
• Transition to Substantive
Issues
• Free Recall Phase
• Closure
Investigative
Interviews of
Children
Debra Poole and
Michael Lamb
American Psychological
Association (1998)
APA Order Department
P.O. Box 92984
Washington, DC
20090-2984
Children's
Testimony: A
Handbook of
Psychological
Research and
Forensic Practice
(Wiley Series in
Psychology of Crime,
Policing and Law) -
Lamb, La Rooy, Malloy,
Katz (Editors)
4
Thomas D. Lyon, J.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Law & Psychology at USC
http://works.bepress.com/thomaslyon
http://www.nationalcac.org/
Chapter 5: Investigative
interviewing of the child
by Thomas Lyon
D.N. Duquette & A.M. Haralambie (Eds.)
Child Welfare Law and Practice
(2d Ed.)
The APSAC
Handbook on
Child
Maltreatment,
3rd edition
Editor: John E.B.
Myers
Sage Publications,
July 2010
APSAC’s Approach
Research Results
• Structured Narrative Interview
• Best practices based on research
• Each interviewer customizes
their approach
Children Who Disclosed in Response
to Open-Ended Prompts
Guided by:
• NICHD protocol interviews: 89%
• Standard interviews:
36%
”Best Interests of the Child”
5
Research Results
All ages:
 3-5
times more info to
open-ended vs. focused
prompts
Research Results
Case Outcome Study
After intro of NICHD protocol:
• More cases filed
• More convictions at trial
“Toward a Better Way to Interview Child Victims of Sexual Abuse”
Sara Harris, NIJ Journal, Issue 267, June 2011
Research Results
Ongoing
feedback &
training essential to
reinforce & maintain skills
Philosophical Differences:
• Amount of emphasis &
attention given to open-ended
verbal questioning techniques
• Use of media
(drawings & dolls)
(these differences apply primarily
to young children, i.e., under 10)
Practical Differences:
Instructions
Truth/Lie Discussions
Narrative Event Practice
Transition
(these differences apply primarily
to young children, i.e., under 10)
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Setting
Best Practices:
Widespread
Agreement
Documentation
Timing
Number
Allegation-Blind?
Build Rapport
Be Developmentally Appropriate
Adapt to the Individual Child
(culture, disabilities, etc.)
Setting
• Child-friendly
• Neutral (de-emphasize authority)
• Private
• Free of distractions
– Ideally, 1 person (but CPS & LE
Documentation
should coordinate)
DVD RECORDING THE FORENSIC CHILD ABUSE
VICTIM INTERVIEW:
Washington State’s Pilot Project, 2003 – 2005
http://www.waprosecutors.
org/docs/05finalDVD.pdf
7
Findings
1. Enhanced charging
2. Helped w/plea negotiations
3. No clear advantages re: jury
trials
Timing?
“Allegation-blind”?
4. Improved interviewers’ skills
How many
interviews?
Reminiscence
- a natural
memory process
 Additional
interviews
Should
be open-ended &
non-suggestive
Could
take place same day,
or within a reasonable time
Build Rapport
8
Be Developmentally
Appropriate
“He did it with a
circle in a square.”
9
Ask more openended questions and
fewer closed-ended
questions!
Adapt to Individual Child
Encourage
Narratives
Question Types
“What happened?”
 Closed
Yes/no
 Forced/Multiple choice
 Some “WH” questions
 Open-ended

“What color was his shirt?”
10
Two kinds of WH words:
Concrete/Abstract
Concrete
What
Where
Who
When?
Abstract
When
Why
How
Improving Questions
 Yes/No:
Did anything come out of his
penis?”
“

Open-ended alternatives:
 “What
 “Tell
happened with his penis?”
me everything you saw/felt.”
 “What
happened right after he
put his penis on you?”
Improving Questions

Always include an open-ended option
 “…or something else?”
 “…or
 “…or
someone else?”
somewhere else?”
 Don’t include expected answer in
choices presented
11
“Pairing”
“Pairing”
Always follow up forced choice &
specific/focused Qs to request more info
 Examples:

 “Tell
me more about that.”
do you mean when you say…?”
 “What
 “How
do you know?”
OR
 “How did you figure that out?”
“Tell me…”
“Tell me more.”
 “…more.”
 “…everything
that happened.”
 “…all about… .”
 “…how you know.”
 “…how you figured that out.”
12
Open-Ended Invitations




“Then what
happened?”
“Tell me everything that happened
from the beginning to the end.”
“Tell me everything you remember,
even the little parts you don’t think
are important.”
“You said ______. Tell me
everything about that.”
“I’m confused, tell me again.”
Consider these answers:
“What happened
next?”
 “My
clothes were on.”
 “Well,
versus
my underpants
were down around my
ankles and he pulled my
skirt up over my tummy.”
“It’s simple,
but it’s not easy.”
Tom Lyon
13
Additional
Open-Ended Techniques
Cued Recall
Cued Recall
Time Segmentation
• “You said ____. Tell me more.”
• “I heard something about ____.
[use the least suggestive cue possible]
Tell me about that.”
Time Segmentation
Sensory Focus
“I’d like to find out more
about what happened.
Tell me everything that
happened from [child’s words]
until [child’s words].”
14
Sensory Focus
“Think
about what it
looked liked. Tell me
everything you saw.”
“Think about the sounds
and tell me everything
you heard.”
Questions About
Feelings
“Supplemental Investigative Interview
Questions,” Elizabeth Ahern & Tom Lyon
 “How did you feel?” Increasing child
sexual abuse witnesses’ production of
evaluative information, Lyon, T.D., Scurich,

N., Choi, K., Handmaker, S., & Blank, K. (Jan.
2012, in press – Law and Human Behavior)
“How did you feel
when [abuse occurred]?”
Emotional reactions
• “Scared,” “Grossed out,” “Mad”
• 10 year old: “Scared ‘cause he told me not
to tell anybody and I didn’t know what was
gonna happen if I told somebody.”
• 9 year old: “I think ‘what is he doing?”’and
then and then I said ‘stop’ and he was run
and and then he start putting his hand
under my shirt and I said ‘stop’ and then
my grandma come.”
“How did you feel
when [abuse occurred]?”
Physical reactions
• 12 year old: “I felt bad. Like I felt like
like he was entering me, it hurt me, my
stomach hurts, all of my hurt, my legs
hurt.”
• 11 year old: “It was thick and it hurt.”
interviewer repeated “It was thick and it
hurt,” & child continued “And he was more
heavy.”
• 7 year old boy: “I was gonna puke.”
10 year old girl
Q: How did you feel when he touched you?
A: Kind of angry at him cause he shouldn’t
be doing that and sometimes I thought
that he was doing that cause I wasn’t his
daughter (oh, o.k.) I felt kind of mad,
disappointed. ‘Cause in front of my mom he
always say that he love me really. And on
my mind I say that if he loves me why was
he doing that to me.
15
Q: Okay. How did you feel after he touched
you?
A: I felt like nasty. Like dirty.
Q: Really. Tell me about that, dirty and
nasty.
A: ‘Cause he touch, if he touches me, he
touch me, right. Then he just leaves and like
if like if I didn’t work anymore just leave
me like that. (uh-huh) And I felt like mad
and at the same time felt kind of dirty
because he shouldn’t be doing that because
I’m just a little girl.
“Feeling” Questions
“How did that make you
feel?”
“How did that make
your body feel?”
“Feeling” Questions






“How did you feel when he touched you?”
“How did your body feel when he touched
you?”
“What did you think when he touched you?”
“How did you feel after he touched you?”
“How did it feel when you went to the
bathroom?”
“How do you feel about everything that
has happened?”
“Ground Rules”
Interview Guidelines
Instructions
“Orienting” Child to Interview
16
Rationale
 Increase
accuracy
 Decrease
inclination to guess
 Increase
willingness to ask for
clarification
 Increase
resistance to
suggestion
 (Time
concern?)
General Recommendations
for Instructions
1. One at a time
2. Short & simple language
3. Use examples & feedback
4. Don’t ad-lib
5. Reinforce throughout
Most important, researchbased instructions
1. ‘Don’t guess’
2. Don’t understand - ‘Tell me if
you don’t know what I mean’
3. ‘Correct me if I make a
mistake’
4. Un-informed interviewer - ‘I
wasn’t there’
17
Truth/Lie
Discussions
1. Promise to
tell truth
2. Competency
assessment
Why include the promise?
 Reinforces
seriousness
 Increases
honesty
(decreases lies)
 Responses
can give you
valuable info
18
Question:
“Do you promise that
you will tell me the
truth?”
Child’s Response:
“I can’t.”
 “It’s
very important that you
tell me the truth.”
 “Do you promise that you will
tell me the truth?”
 “Are
lies?”
you going to tell me any
T/L Competency Assessment
 Understands
concepts of
 Understands
it’s wrong to
truth & lie
lie and
 Makes
truth
commitment to tell
How to
Demonstrate
Truth/Lie
Competency
19
T/L Competency Assessment
Scenario example to demonstrate
child’s understanding of concept
Narrative
Event Practice
“Joe ate all the cookies.
Joe’s Mom asked if he ate
the cookies & Joe said ‘No,
the dog ate the cookies.’
What’s Joe doing?”



Research: Narrative Practice
Practicing Narratives
Narrative practice in interviews
increases the productivity of
children’s abuse disclosures with no
evidence of impaired accuracy
Explore a specific event
from start to finish
Encourage Event Narratives


episodic memory
rather than script memory
 Elicits
Hershkowitz, 2009; Sternberg et al., 1997
Roberts, Lamb, & Sternberg, 2004
“Tell me about things you like to do.”
Then identify a related event to ask
about
OR:
 “Tell me everything you did from
when you woke up until you came
here.”
Encourage Event Narratives




“Tell me everything that happened from
the beginning to the end.”
“Tell me everything you remember, even
the little parts you don’t think are
important.”
“You said ______. Tell me everything
about that.”
“I’m confused, tell me again.”
20
Encourage Event Narratives
Tell
me more
questions
“You said ____. Tell me more about
_____.”

What happened next
questions
Encourage Event Narratives
 Time
Segmentation
 Frame
the event in time
 Sensory
Focus
 “You
said _____. What happened
next?”
Video Example:
Intro, Instructions, Narrative Practice
“Tell me why you came to
talk to me.”
OR
“It’s really important
for me to know why you
came to talk to me.”
“Tell me why I came to
talk to you.”
21
did [your mom] tell you
about why I want to talk to
you today?”
 “What
 “Did
anyone tell you anything
about why you’re here today?”
 “Why
do you think I want to
talk to you today?”
 “I understand something might
have happened – tell me what
happened.”
If prior disclosure
“I heard you talked to
________ about something
that happened. Tell me
what happened.”
“I heard you saw _____ last
week. Tell me what you
talked about.”
When that doesn’t work
When that doesn’t work
“Is [your mom] worried
about something that
happened? Tell me what
she’s worried about.”
“I heard someone might
have bothered you. Tell me
everything about that.”
When that doesn’t work
“I heard someone may have
done something that wasn’t
right. Tell me everything
about that.”
Substantive
Questions
22
Clarify Frequency



Clarify multiple events right away
“Did [______] happen one time or
more than one time?”
To Keep Children Talking

Don’t interrupt a narrative
 Clarify later (using notes to remind you):
“You said _____. Tell me what you mean
by _____.”
OR “
 Tell me who ____ is.”

Ask for description of specific
incidents – last time, first time,
another time, “the time you
remember the most”
Use “facilitators” – “okay” /“Uh-huh”


Use child’s name frequently

Repeat what child just said
23
Just when you think
you’ve heard it all…
Should they be used in
interviews about suspected
sexual abuse?
SEE:
“Twenty-five years of interviewing research &
practice: Dolls, diagrams, & the dynamics of abuse
disclosure,” Tom Lyon, April 2012 APSAC Advisor
“One problem with interview aids is that they are
models that represent something else. To use an
anatomical detailed doll/drawing as opposed to a
doll without sexual organs, for example, the child
must realize that the doll is not only an object
itself, but also a representation of the child.
Children between the ages of two and
four years may not have the cognitive
sophistication to use interview aids
representationally (DeLoache, 1995). As a
result, dolls often do not help young children
report more information about events or help
them report more accurately (Lamb et al., 1995).”
What about
drawings?
24
“Minimal research has been done on
the use of anatomical diagrams in
child sexual abuse forensic
interviews. Unlike anatomical dolls,
which have been researched in depth,
anatomical diagrams have been used
for years with little or no guidance on
their proper use in forensic settings.”
What about a
“body parts inventory”?
(AKA “anatomy ID”)
Holmes and Finnegan (APRI, 2002)
Naming Body Parts
Clarify terms after
child gives some
information about
abuse. Do not interrupt
child’s narrative to ask.
Use of Tools/Media
 Use
only after verbal reports
have been elicited
 Continue
to request verbal
clarification & details
 Use
least suggestive tools
25
Tom Lyon’s Personal View
“…[dolls and diagrams] should be used
only as a last resort and avoided
altogether with children under 4 years of
age. After one has worked through the
disclosure questions that are provided by
the NICHD protocol, then direct
questions about genital touch could be
used with caution and only when a
subsequent interview is not practical (or
when delay may endanger the child).”
26
Keep Learning,
Keep Improving –
Nat’l Assn. of Certified Child Forensic
Interviewers (NACCFI):
Things Change
http://www.naccfi.com/
People learn
something every day,
and a lot of times,
it’s that what they
learned the day
before was wrong.
Thank you and good luck!
Patti Toth, J.D.
Washington State
Criminal Justice Training Commission
ptoth@cjtc.state.wa.us
Bill Vaughan
27