Fourteen interviewers conducted 51 investigations of child sexual abuse with children (ages 4.5 to 12.9 years). Interviewers used a script including either open-ended questions or direct questions. Both rapport-building scripts took about seven minutes. Children who had received the open-ended training provided twice as many details and words…

Objectives: The present study was designed to explore structural differences between forensic interviews in which children made allegations and those in which children did not make allegations. Methodology: Fifty forensic interviews of 4- to 13-year-old suspected victims of abuse who did not disclose abuse during the interview were compared with…

Ninety 4- to 13-year-old alleged victims of sexual abuse were interviewed by police officers using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) investigative interview protocol, following which they were shown a human figure drawing and asked a series of questions. The drawing and associated questions elicited an average of…

Objective: To introduce and evaluate a structured interview protocol designed for investigative interviews of youthful alleged perpetrators of child sexual abuse. Method: Seventy-two alleged perpetrators ranging from 9 to 14 years of age (M=12 years) were interviewed by 1 of 13 experienced youth investigators, employed by the Israeli Ministry of…

This study examined the accuracy of a 13-year-old girl's account of a sexually abusive incident. Information given by the victim was compared with an audiotaped record. Over 50% of information reported by the victim was corroborated by the audio record and 64% was confirmed by more than one source. (Author/CR)