Disclosure of Child Sexual Abuse : Impact of Interviewers’ Attitudes & Children's Collaboration during Forensic Interviews

Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) is a complex subject to investigate and an alleged victim’s disclosure is crucial as it may be the only substantial evidence for investigators to establish their case.  However, even when CSA is revealed, children may be reluctant to reveal personal and often embarrassing details to a stranger during a forensic interview.  As it is not always possible to obtain consent to film and it is relatively hard to measure children’s and interviewers’ non-verbal attitudes during forensic interviews, this doctoral dissertation was innovative in its creation of verbal scales of such attitudes.  In order to determine whether interviewers’ attitudes correlates with children’s collaboration during forensic interviews, 90 children ranging from 4 to 13 years of age were analysed. Interviews were audio taped, transcribed and then codified using verbal subscales of interviewers’ supportive and non-supportive attitudes as well as children's cooperative and reluctant attitudes. The proportion of details provided by the children in regards to the SA was calculated.      To determine if differences exist between National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Protocol and Non-Protocol interviews, a MANCOVA was conducted controlling for children’s age and the proportion of open-ended questions. As expected Protocol interviews obtained significantly more details from open-ended prompts than Non-Protocol interviews. However, it showed no differences according to children’s and interviewer’s attitudes. To find the variable that has the greatest impact on the quantity of detail disclosed by children, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted. After controlling for children’s age, NICHD Protocol and proportion of open-ended questions which are known to increase the quantity of details disclosed; children’s reluctance and interviewers’ non-supportive attitudes contributed to an additional 28% of the variance, when the total variance explained by the model as a whole was 58%.   Moreover, to determine whether children’s collaboration and interviewers’ attitudes vary according to the child’s age-group a MANOVA was conducted. It revealed that interviewers behaved similarly irrespective of children’s age, even though younger children were generally more reluctant and cooperated significantly less than pre-adolescents.  Finally, to determine which variables regarding child and SA characteristics, as well as interviewers’ attitudes, will have a greater chance at predicting children’s collaboration, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted. It showed that an interviewer’s support was a stronger correlating variable than children’s and SA characteristics in predicting children’s collaboration.            While we believe that the development of the NICHD Protocol has enabled considerable progress in the way children are interviewed leading to more details obtained from free recall strategies, and thus leading to more credible testimonies.  However, adherence to the Protocol is simply not sufficient to convince young reluctant children to talk in details about the SA to a stranger.  This dissertation results have great scientific value as it enhances the theoretical underpinnings of the attitudes expressed by both the child and the interviewer during forensic interviews.  Although, interviewers in this study did offer more support to reluctant children, regardless of their age, researchers need to find better ways to deal with young children’s reluctance as well as encourage practitioners to minimize non-supportive attitudes.

Keyphrases: non-soutien, child sexual abuse, forensic interviews, NICHD protocol, age, reluctance, support, non-support, cooperation, sexual abuse characteristics, child characteristics