Effects of age and delay on the amount of information provided by alleged sex abuse victims in investigative interviews
Lamb, M.E.; Sternberg, K.J.; Esplin, P.W.
Child Development 71(6): 1586-1596
2000
ISSN/ISBN: 0009-3920 PMID: 11194258 DOI: 10.1111/1467-8624.00250Document Number: 263675
A total of 145 children of 4 to 5, 6 to 7, 8 to 9, and 10 to 12 years of age were interviewed within 3 days, 1 month, 1 to 3 months, or 5 to 14 months after allegedly experiencing a single incident of sexual abuse. The proportion of substantive investigative utterances eliciting new details from the children increased with age and decreased after delays of more than 1 month. Age (but not delay) was also associated with the length and richness of informative responses to individual investigative utterances of all types. Children were more likely to provide new details in response to option-posing and suggestive prompts. As in previous field studies, interviewers employed few open-ended prompts, and thus only 5% of the information obtained was elicited using free-recall prompts.