social techniques intended to facilitate communication
(e.g., rapport building, no interruptions). Compared
with control interviews, the developmentally adapted
CI for children ranging in age from 4 to 12 years, tends
to elicit more correct information, although the reverse-
order-recall and change perspective instructions may
increase the reporting of incorrect details by young
children. Moreover, the mental reinstatement and report
everything mnemonics appear to be useful in reducing
the negative effects of misinformation even in preschool-
age children (i.e., 4–5 years).
Rather than supplying specific cues derived from the
event itself, narrative elaboration (NE) provides child
witnesses with pre-interview training, instructions, and
techniques that could be applied to any event of inter-
est. NE’s main objective is to help overcome potential
developmental limitations in communication and mem-
ory, such as lack of knowledge about the expectations
of the listener and ineffective use of memory search
strategies, by training children about the level of detail
required and by providing picture cards as external cues
to report forensically important categories of informa-
tion. Overall, NE is helpful in enhancing children’s
eyewitness recall without increasing the amount of
inaccuracies provided by 3- to 11-year-old children.
Similarly, after an initial rapport-building phase,
the NICHD interview protocol incorporates training
of children to respond to open-ended prompts during
the presubstantive phase of the investigative interview.
Next, the interviewer attempts to shift the child’s
focus to the substantive issue in a nonsuggestive man-
ner (e.g., “Tell me why you came to talk to me
today”), so that the recollection process can begin.
During this substantive phase, interviewers maximize
the use of open-ended questions and probes, introduc-
ing focused questions only after exhausting the open-
ended-question modes. At the end of the session,
interviewers may use option-posing questions to
obtain essential information. This protocol is flexibly
structured and aimed to translate research-based rec-
ommendations into operational guidelines to enhance
children’s retrieval using recall-memory prompts. It
has been extensively investigated with real alleged
child victims of sexual offenses, and it appears to be
useful with children 4 years and older.
Basic and applied research underlies the develop-
ment of interview techniques and protocols. However,
further research on the accuracy of children’s eyewit-
ness memory—for example, concerning highly emo-
tional and embarrassing information—is necessary to
elucidate how extensive these benefits are. And, ofspecial relevance, improved strategies and tools that
can be effectively used with young children (e.g.,
3-year-olds) to obtain evidence about specific details
of an event without compromising the accuracy of
their reports are still needed.PPrrooppss aanndd CCuueess
Children typically have more information in mem-
ory than they report in response to free-recall or open-
ended questions. Props such as real objects, scale
models, dolls, toys, photographs, and drawings can
provide concrete external retrieval cues for young
children. They also can potentially extend memory
retrieval by engaging children in the forensic interview
for a longer period than do mere verbal prompts.
According to the principle of encoding specificity, the
effectiveness of a particular retrieval prop or cue
depends on its match with the items to be retrieved
with regard to how they were encoded and stored.
Especially for younger children, an optimal match
should include the original sensory/perceptual features
as well as a clear symbolic correspondence.
Overall, props can facilitate children’s reports but
also increase the number of errors children make (e.g.,
if they are too young to understand dual representa-
tions). The extent to which props facilitate or compro-
mise children’s testimony depends on factors such as
the nature of the event and of the prop, the mode of pre-
sentation, and the time that has elapsed between the
event and the interview. And the age of the child may
be critical in determining the influence of these factors.
Real props have maximal overlap with event infor-
mation and can effectively aid retrieval for 3- to 10-
year-olds. Real props and scale models increase the
correct information that children report, but they also
introduce additional errors, especially for younger
children. In contrast to real props, toys and dolls,
including anatomically detailed dolls, can increase
commission errors and decrease accuracy, especially
when preschool-age children are interviewed with
misleading questions or when “distractor” or play-
evoking props are involved. Under certain circum-
stances (i.e., in combination with specific but nonleading
prompts), drawings can facilitate the completeness
and accuracy of 5-years-olds’ and older children’s
accounts, although there are mixed findings in relation
to the effectiveness of drawings with preschool
children. Finally, human figure drawings can produce
a considerable amount of new details during the inter-
view, especially for children aged from 4 to 7 years,80 ———Children’s TestimonyC-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:41 PM Page 80