Abstract
SummaryChildren must describe maltreatment coherently for their testimony to be influential in court. We know little about how well children with intellectual disabilities (CWID) describe their experiences relative to typically developing (TD) children, despite CWID's vulnerability to maltreatment. We investigated children's reports of an experienced event and compared coherence in CWID (mild to moderate impairment: 7–11 years) with TD children matched for mental (4–10 years) or chronological age (7–11 years). All children included important markers of narrative coherence in their reports. Children with lower mental ages, particularly those with an intellectual disability, included fewer markers of narrative coherence in their reports than children with higher mental ages. Individual markers of narrative coherence, particularly recall of content, predicted accuracy of testimony and resistance to suggestion even when disability and mental age were taken into account. These findings highlight the importance of helping children to describe their experiences coherently.
Highlights
When children give testimony about maltreatment, the extent to which they can effectively convey their experiences influences whether their complaints are pursued in court and how credible they appear (Davis, Hoyano, Keenan, Maitland, & Morgan, 1999; Henry, Ridley, Perry, & Crane, 2011; Pipe, Orbach, Lamb, Abbott, & Stewart, 2013)
We examined data collected as part of a broader research program on children with intellectual disabilities (CWID)'s eyewitness testimony and focused on the coherence of children's reports
Almost half the sample had a formal diagnosis of intellectual disability so we looked at the effect of group membership (TD vs. ID) and examined group membership differences further by including the interaction of Group with CA and MA
Summary
When children give testimony about maltreatment, the extent to which they can effectively convey their experiences influences whether their complaints are pursued in court and how credible they appear (Davis, Hoyano, Keenan, Maitland, & Morgan, 1999; Henry, Ridley, Perry, & Crane, 2011; Pipe, Orbach, Lamb, Abbott, & Stewart, 2013). Children's accounts are often the primary forms of evidence in cases of maltreatment, so listeners (including investigators and jury members) must be able to understand children's responses to questioning. If they are unable to make sense of children's accounts for any reason (i.e., ambiguities, lack of structure or organization, and incoherence), the credibility and impact of their evidence may be diminished (Davis et al, 1999; Westcott & Kynan, 2004). The limited evidence suggests that, as with other dimensions of eyewitness testimony (e.g., amount and accuracy), narrative skill is influenced by both individual (e.g., developmental level; Feltis, Powell, & Roberts, 2011) and interview (e.g., questioning strategy: Feltis, Powell, Snow, & Hughes‐Scholes, 2010) factors
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