Background Two decisions hy the California Supreme Court of Appeal in the spring of 1987 have made it difficult to admit evidence based on anatomically correct doll interviews with children. An earlier court ruling ( People v. Shirley ) had implied that the Kelly-Frye rule on the admissibility of evidence ( Frye v. Untied States , 1923: People v. Kelly , 1976) would extend from physical to include psychological evidence. In its reversal of lower court decisions ( In re Amber B. and Teela B and In re Christine C. and Michael C. ) to accept testimony based on children's play with anatomically correct dolls, the California Supreme Court concluded that use of the dolls constitutes a new scientific method of proof and is admissible in court only if it has been accepted as generally reliable in the scientific community. In following the debate, two expert child and adolescent psychiatrists argue this issue of scientific reliability.