Children's Testimony

Memory and Suggestibility in the Child Witness

During the past several decades, there has been an exponential increase in the number of children who provide statements in legal cases, thus magnifying the need to determine the credibility of their testimony.

[Page 78]In general, older children are more accurate in eyewitness reports than are younger children, although even preschool-age children can provide accurate accounts of salient or personally meaningful events, including their own victimization. When asked free recall and open-ended questions, preschoolers can recall relevant and accurate information, but on average they are less responsive and provide fewer spontaneous statements than older children and adults. Because young children's free reports are generally relatively brief and incomplete, they are often exposed to specific and leading questions in forensic situations, which are indeed more likely to elicit the child's memory of an event. On the negative side, however, children are less accurate than adults in response to specific questions and more vulnerable to interviewers' implied suggestions. Particularly, closed questions, such as yes/no and forced-choice questions, can be problematic for young children, because they may guess instead of providing “I don't know” responses. Children also often have considerable difficulty in using standardized units of measurement, such as minutes and months, and in indicating the number of times highly repeated acts have occurred, even though such information can be vital in a legal case.

Usually, children's testimony is required for crimes or experiences that are negative, if not traumatic. Although this is a subject of debate, considerable research with adults suggests that for stressful compared with nonstressful events, central features (e.g., the main stressors) are retained particularly well, whereas peripheral details are less well remembered. Several studies confirm such findings for children; however, the results of developmental studies are mixed.

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