Children’s Reports of Disclosure Recipient Reactions in Forensic Interviews: Comparing the NICHD and MoGP Protocols

Reactions from confidantes who receive children’s abuse disclosures can affect children’s well-being and the likelihood that they will recant. Disclosure recipient (DR) reactions were coded in 95 forensic interviews of 4- to 13-year-old alleged sexual abuse victims. Half of the interviews were conducted using the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Protocol (which includes a disclosure phase focused on the child’s initial abuse report) and the other half using the Memorandum of Good Practice (MoGP), a predecessor of the Achieving Best Evidence (ABE) guidelines used in the UK today (which recommends asking about children’s initial disclosures but has no designated disclosure phase). Children reported a variety of DR reactions, including supportive and unsupportive responses, and noted that many DRs questioned them about the allegations. NICHD interviews contained more references to DR reactions than MoGP interviews. NICHD interviews elicited more DR reaction information using invitations rather than more focused prompts and by asking children explicitly about their disclosures rather than relying on children to provide the information spontaneously. Findings indicated that children may be willing and able to provide disclosure information but may require prompting.This research was supported by the Nuffield and Jacobs Foundations.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Springer at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11896-016-9205-x

Question types, responsiveness and self-contradictions when prosecutors and defense attorneys question alleged victims of child sexual abuse

We examined 120 trial transcripts of 6- to 12-year-old children testifying to sexual abuse. Age and attorney role were analyzed in relation to question types, children’s responsiveness, and self-contradiction frequency. A total of 48,716 question-response pairs were identified. Attorneys used more closed-ended than open-ended prompts. Prosecutors used more invitations (3% vs. 0%), directives and optionposing prompts than defence attorneys, who used more suggestive prompts than prosecutors. Children were more unresponsive to defence attorneys than to prosecutors. Self-contradictions were identified in 95% of the cases. Defence attorneys elicited more self-contradictions than prosecutors, but nearly all prosecutors (86%) elicited at least one self-contradiction. Suggestive questions elicited more selfcontradictions than any other prompt type. There were no associations with age. These findings suggest that neither prosecutors nor defence attorneys question children in developmentally appropriate ways.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Wiley via http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.310

Rapport-Building in Investigative Interviews of Alleged Child Sexual Abuse Victims

Research shows that both utterance type and rapport-building can affect children’s productivity during the substantive phase of investigative interviews. However, few researchers have examined the effects of utterance type and content on children’s productivity within the rapport-building phase. In the present study, transcripts of interviews with 94 4- to 13-year-old alleged victims were examined. Interviews were conducted using either the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Protocol or the Memorandum of Good Practice (MoGP). The NICHD Protocol interviews contained more invitations and questions about events and hobbies/likes than the MoGP interviews. Children’s productivity was associated with utterance type and topic, showing both the benefits of invitations and questions asking about past events. Our findings complement research focusing on the substantive phase of child forensic interviews, suggesting that both utterance type and prompt content during the rapport-building phase can affect children’s immediate productivity.This is the author accepted manuscript. It is currently under an indefinite embargo pending publication by Wiley

Personality predicts musical sophistication

There is little research on the role of personality in musical expertise. We address this gap in the literature by using data from a large national study (N = 7,870) to examine how scores on 10 facets of the Big Five dimensions of personality predicted self-reported musical sophistication and performance on two behavioral tests (melodic memory and rhythm perception). Personality predicted musical sophistication even after controlling for demographic variables and musicianship, with Openness to Aesthetics the best trait predictor. Substance use also predicted musical sophistication for various subscales and the behavioral tests. These findings replicated in both musician and non-musician subgroups.The authors thank Robert R. McCrae for his helpful comments on an earlier draft. Data collection was made possible by the LabUK research unit of the British Broadcasting Corporation.This is the accepted manuscript of a paper published in the Journal of Research in Personality (Greenberg DM, Müllensiefen D, Lamb ME, Rentfrow PJ, Journal of Research in Personality, 2015, doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2015.06.002). The final version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2015.06.00

The structural linguistic complexity of lawyers' questions and children's responses in Scottish criminal courts

In the first study to systematically assess the structural linguistic complexity of lawyers' questions of children in Scotland, we examined 56 trial transcripts of 5- to 17-year-old children testifying as alleged victims of sexual abuse. Complexity was assessed using 8 quantitative measures of each utterance's components (number of questions, phrases, clauses, sentences, false starts, average word count, word length, and sentence length) and a composite measure was used in the analyses. Lawyers did not alter the complexity of questions when prompting children of different ages. Defense lawyers asked more structurally complex questions than prosecutors. Directive questions were the least structurally complex questions, followed by option-posing questions. Suggestive questions, followed by invitations, were the most structurally complex questions. Option-posing and suggestive questions were more complex when asked by defense lawyers than prosecutors. Of suggestive questions, confrontation and tagged questions were more complex than any other question type. Increased structural complexity led to more unresponsiveness, more expressions of uncertainty, and more self-contradictions regardless of which lawyer asked, the question type, or the children's ages. These findings highlight the additional risks associated with asking some types of questions in structurally complex ways and highlight the need for further innovations (e.g., the use of intermediaries) to facilitate the questioning of vulnerable witnesses in Scottish criminal courts.This research was supported by an Economic and Social Research Council studentship to Samantha J. Andrews

Allegation rates in forensic child abuse investigations: Comparing the revised and standard NICHD protocols

426 4- to 13-year-old suspected victims of intra-familial abuse were interviewed using either the NICHD Investigative Interview Standard Protocol (SP) or a Revised version of this Protocol (RP) designed to both enhance rapport between children and interviewers and provide additional non-suggestive support to suspected victims who might be reluctant to make allegations. All allegations were corroborated by independent evidence documenting that the alleged abuse had indeed taken place. Analyses revealed that children were significantly more likely to make allegations of abuse when the RP rather than the SP was employed. These results suggest that supportive forensic interviewing may facilitate valid reports of abuse by young victims who might otherwise be unwilling to make allegations.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version of this article can be found here: doi: 10.1037/a0037391. This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record. © 2014 American Psychological Association

Musical Engagement is Linked to Posttraumatic Resilience: The Role of Gender, Personality, and Music Listening Styles After Childhood Trauma

Funder: Jacobs and Nuffield Foundations Previous research on the links between music and posttraumatic resilience have typically relied on small sample sizes and case studies from clinical settings. To address this important gap, we conducted an online study to measure childhood trauma and adult musical engagement in everyday life in non-clinical contexts. The present study ( N = 634) investigated these links by administering online questionnaires about musical engagement, personality, and demographics to adult survivors of childhood trauma. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that social music listening predicted increased well-being in males while affective music listening predicted decreased well-being in males. Gender moderated the interaction between affective engagement and well-being: affective engagement was linked to increased well-being in females and a decrease in males. Furthermore, neuroticism moderated the interaction between narrative listening and well-being: narrative listening was linked to increased well-being for participants with low neuroticism and a decrease for those with high neuroticism. These findings may reflect general gender differences in coping styles: emotional reflection for females and emotional distraction for males, and suggest gender differences in attentional biases, rumination, and capacities for disassociation. Taken together, the results show that there are individual differences in musical engagement and posttraumatic resilience based on gender and personality. These findings are useful for the development of music-based coping strategies that mental health professionals can tailor for individual clients. </jats:p

Translation and Community in the work of Elizabeth Cary

Explores the role of female community within Elizabeth Cary\u27s translations and her play, The Tragedy of Mariam

Associations Between Parenting Styles and Perceived Child Effortful Control Within Chinese Families in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Taiwan

The current study examined the associations between parentally perceived child effortful control (EC) and the parenting styles of 122 Chinese mothers (36 first-generation Chinese immigrants in the United Kingdom, 40 first-generation Chinese immigrants in the United States, and 46 Taiwanese mothers) of 5- to 7-year-old (M age = 5.82 years, SD = .805; 68 boys and 54 girls) children. The findings showed significant cultural group differences in mothers’ reported authoritarian parenting style. Significant associations also emerged between mothers’ reports of their children’s EC and some parenting dimensions, although there were no cultural group differences in perceived child EC. Different patterns of associations between perceived child EC and parenting styles in these three groups also demonstrated heterogeneity within the Chinese population, and highlighted the need to consider differences between original and receiving societies when seeking to understand parenting and child development in different immigrant groups