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Interviewing Techniques with Children in Sexual Abuse Cases

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Interviewing Techniques with Children in Sexual Abuse Cases

Approximately 5 children die every day because of child abuse in the United States. A total of 68 percent of children are usually sexually abused by a family member. Research indicates that 2.1 of 3 girls and 1 of 5 boys will be sexually abused before they turned 18 years old. (ChildHelp, 2005)

Conducting research or a study on this population (children) is very interesting as there are many things we can learn from children. Children who are victims and/or witnesses of child sexual abuse are compelling to research about, due to the weight these children have to carry with them for the rest of their lives. It’s important to know how deeply this horrendous crime affects and influence a child’s behavior and mental state.

Interviewing children is more complex than working with any other population in the psychology field, due to children providing limited information about the past or prior events they have experienced. What makes children interesting in studying are the various interview techniques that are utilized while investigating and/or counselling children that are victims as well as witnesses to sexual abuse. A question that arises when interviewing children is if they are credible and/ or providing the interviewer with false allegations.

There are special objects and questioners that are utilized when interviewing a child, these techniques can be critical to the case as the child will provide the interviewer with a visual of what occurred to them. This will also help the interviewer as well, because usually children answer questions with a yes, no or I don’t know reply. The questioners and objects used require the child to provide more information. Interviewing children poses many challenges due to questioning their statements (false allegations) and their credibility.

The article utilized in this research supports the interview techniques and objects used in their studies. Based on the first article by Coolbear, J. 1992, who’s studied compared assessment strategies of legal and human services professional working with young children in sexual abuse cases, used a various strategies to determine the victim’s credibility. (Coolbear, J., 1992).

In the article it indicated that the majority of child sexual abuse cases the victim is the only witness and their supported evidence of the crime against them is minimal or lacking. The researchers have suggested techniques that will assist the interviewer to gather accurate information from a child and conditions for evaluating the child’s credibility. Coolbear, J. 1992, used the Statement Validity Analysis (SVA), Statement Reality Analysis (SRA) and Anatomically Detailed Dolls as the interview techniques for his research. (Coolbear, J., 1992).

Statement Validity Analysis (SVA) was developed by a group of researchers and practitioners from Canada, United States and West Germany. SVA is a comprehensive technique that uses various types of evidence and procedures to attain a conclusion concerning the credibility of an allegation of child sexual abuse. The main component of this assessment is the criteria-based analysis of the child’s statement that is obtained from a systematic investigative interview. The Statement Reality Analysis (SRA) has been modified to SVA; “Statement Reality Analysis is based on the premise of truthful which reality -based accounts differ significantly and noticeably from unfounded, falsified, or distorted stories.” (Coolbear, J., 1992).

When using the Statement Validity Analysis, is a systematic investigation interview, the interviewer needs to establish rapport with the child, questions to the child should be in a non-leading manner. The child should be encouraged to recall information freely of events that surrounds the allegations, and should be allowed to discuss the events/incidents in their own way, pace and emphasis. At the final step of the interview the interviewer has the opportunity to ask open ended and non-leading questions. The final step is very helpful for the interviewer as it helps clarify or understand certain statements that were understandable and to receive further details. When the interview is completed, the interviewer can assess the child in its venerable state by asking the child questions not related to the incident. (Coolbear, J., 1992).

Interviewers should videotape their session, especially when working with a child as the video can be helpful for evaluating the child statements and to know what questions to ask. A key point when interviewing a child is that the interviewer should have experience and knowledge of how to interview children. (Coolbear, J., 1992).

Raskin and Yuile, 1989 created a detailed outlined used for the SVA which contains

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