The effects of an intensive training and feedback program on investigative interviews of children

In the present study, we assessed the effectiveness of an extensive training and feedback program with investigative interviewers of child victims of alleged abuse and neglect in a large Canadian city. Twelve investigative interviewers participated in a joint training initiative that lasted eight months and involved classroom components and extensive weekly verbal and written feedback. Interviewers were significantly more likely to use open-ended prompts and elicited more information from children with open-ended prompts following training. These differences were especially prominent following a subsequent ‘refresher’ training session. No negative effects of training were observed. Clear evidence was found of the benefits of an intensive training and feedback program across a wide variety of investigative interviews with children. Although previous research has found benefits of training with interviewers of child sexual assault victims, the current study extends these findings to a wide range of allegations and maltreatment contexts

On the origin of the Trojan asteroids: Effects of Jupiter's mass accretion and radial migration

We present analytic and numerical results which illustrate the effects of Jupiter's accretion of nebular gas and the planet's radial migration on its Trojan companions. Initially, we approximate the system by the planar circular restricted three-body problem and assume small Trojan libration amplitudes. Employing an adiabatic invariant calculation, we show that Jupiter's thirty-fold growth from a $10 M_\oplus$ core to its present mass causes the libration amplitudes of Trojan asteroids to shrink by a factor of about 2.5 to $\sim 40$ of their original size. The calculation also shows that Jupiter's radial migration has comparatively little effect on the Trojans; inward migration from 6.2 to 5.2 AU causes an increase in Trojan libration amplitudes of $\sim4$. In each case, the area enclosed by small tadpole orbits, if made dimensionless by using Jupiter's semimajor axis, is approximately conserved. Similar adiabatic invariant calculations for inclined and eccentric Trojans show that Jupiter's mass growth leaves the asteroid's eccentricities and inclinations essentially unchanged, while one AU of inward migration causes an increase in both of these quantities by $\sim 4$. Numerical integrations confirm and extend these analytic results. We demonstrate that our predictions remain valid for Trojans with small libration amplitudes even when the asteroids have low, butComment: Submitted to Icarus - 13 Fig

Urban Water Conservation and Efficiency Potential in California

Improving urban water-use efficiency is a key solution to California's short-term and longterm water challenges: from drought to unsustainable groundwater use to growing tensions over limited supplies. Reducing unnecessary water withdrawals leaves more water in reservoirs and aquifers for future use and has tangible benefits to fish and other wildlife in our rivers and estuaries. In addition, improving water-use efficiency and reducing waste can save energy, lower water and wastewater treatment costs, and eliminate the need for costly new infrastructure

Public perceptions of recycled water: a survey of visitors to the London 2012 Olympic Park

The Old Ford Water Recycling Plant, operated by Thames Water, was used to supply non-potable recycled blackwater to some of the venues at the London 2012 Games. In an effort to learn from this experience, Thames Water commissioned a survey of visitors to the Olympic Park during the Games to explore public responses to the water recycling project. Results show a very high level of support for using non-potable recycled blackwater, both in public venues and in homes. Such findings may indicate a growing receptivity towards this technology, and show that Thames Water (and other private water companies) are well placed to encourage and even lead public discussion around the role of water reuse in the future of urban water supplies

Oculomotor examination of the weapon focus effect: does a gun automatically engage visual attention?

A person is less likely to be accurately remembered if they appear in a visual scene with a gun, a result that has been termed the weapon focus effect (WFE). Explanations of the WFE argue that weapons engage attention because they are unusual and/or threatening, which causes encoding deficits for the other items in the visual scene. Previous WFE research has always embedded the weapon and nonweapon objects within a larger context that provides information about an actor's intention to use the object. As such, it is currently unknown whether a gun automatically engages attention to a greater extent than other objects independent of the context in which it is presente

The use of paraphrasing in investigative interviews

Objective Young children’s descriptions of maltreatment are often sparse thus creating the need for techniques that elicit lengthier accounts. One technique that can be used by interviewers in an attempt to increase children’s reports is ‘paraphrasing’, or repeating information children have disclosed. Although we currently have a general understanding of how paraphrasing may influence children’s reports, we do not have a clear description of how paraphrasing is actually used in the field. Method The present study assessed the use of paraphrasing in 125 interviews of children aged 4 to 16 years conducted by police officers and social workers. All interviewer prompts were coded into four different categories of paraphrasing. All children’s reports were coded for the number of details in response to each paraphrasing statement. Results ‘Expansion paraphrasing’ (e.g., “you said he hit you. Tell me more about when he hit you”) was used significantly more often and elicited significantly more details, while ‘yes/no paraphrasing’ (e.g., “he hit you?”) resulted in shorter descriptions from children, compared to other paraphrasing styles. Further, interviewers more often distorted children’s words when using yes/no paraphrasing, and children rarely corrected interviewers when they paraphrased inaccurately. Conclusions and Practical Implications Investigative interviewers in this sample frequently used paraphrasing with children of all ages and, though children’s responses differed following the various styles of paraphrasing, the effects did not differ by the age of the child witness. The results suggest that paraphrasing affects the quality of statements by child witnesses. Implications for investigative interviewers will be discussed and recommendations offered for easy ways to use paraphrasing to increase the descriptiveness of children’s reports of their experiences

Using Spaced Learning Principles to Translate Knowledge into Behavior: Evidence from Investigative Interviews of Alleged Child Abuse Victims

The present study assessed the progress of 13 investigative interviewers (child protection workers and police officers) before, during, and after an intensive training program (n = 132 interviews). Training began with a 2-day workshop covering the principles of child development and child-friendly interviewing. Interviewers then submitted interviews on a bi-weekly basis to which they received written and verbal feedback over an 8-month period. A refresher session took place two months into training. Interestingly, improvements were observed only after the refresher session. Interviews conducted post-refresher training contained proportionally more open-ended questions, more child details in response to open-ended questions, and proportionally fewer closed questions than interviews conducted prior to training and in the first half of the training program. The need for ‘spaced learning’ may underlie why so many training programs have had little effect on practice

Interaction Effects of Socioeconomic Status on Emerging Literacy and Literacy Skills among Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten Children: A Comparison Study

Socioeconomic differences in children’s reading and educational outcomes have been thoroughly documented throughout literature. Bobalik, Scarber, and Toon (2017) examined the link between socioeconomic status (SES) and classroom instruction on emerging literacy skills in pre-kindergarten children. The results supported the theory that children identified as belonging to a low socioeconomic status enter school with lower emerging literacy skills and benefit most from academic instruction; these children’s literacy skills substantially increased throughout the academic year, growing closer to those of their peers who were identified with a high socioeconomic status. The aim of the present study was to expand our understanding of the interaction effects of socioeconomic status and curriculum on emerging literacy and literacy skills by continuing the research into kindergarten. This study examined whether 1) differences in groups continued to grow closer to the mean or 2) the differences in groups became greater with the introduction of reading skills in kindergarten. Children (N=33) were recruited from a private school and a public school. The children from the public school who qualified for the Federal Poverty Guidelines for free/reduced lunch were assigned as having a low socioeconomic status, and children from the private school were assigned as having a high socioeconomic status. The Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening – K (PALS-K) was used to measure the literacy skills in the kindergarten children. Results of the study indicated that literacy scores between the socioeconomic groups were not significantly different at the kindergarten level, however differences between the mean scores of the pre-kindergarten and kindergarten groups were found to be significant

An Overview on Institutionalism and Decentralized Decision-Making

Human actions, interactions and decisions should have a certain degree of predictability that can be obtained by establishing rules. Institutions, in general, are defined by sets of rules known by the public and applicable for the community. Their existence is essential for the economic activity, as it cannot develop in a vacuum. At the same time, the type and the quality of institutions make the difference in implementing economic aspirations of individuals and in supporting economic overall growth. Institutions provide a minimum of regulations that in conjunction with the particularities and the interests of individuals and communities become the foundation for economic, political and social decision-making processes.