Encouraging more open-ended recall in child interviews

Area of Science:

• Child Psychology
• Forensic Interviewing
• Memory Retrieval

Background:

• Child forensic interviewers aim to maximize information through open-ended recall.
• Interviewers often prematurely shift to focused questions, limiting recall.
• The narrative elaboration (NE) procedure enhances open-ended recall but is time-consuming.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate streamlined versions of the NE procedure for child forensic interviews.
• To determine if simplified NE techniques can increase open-ended information recall.
• To compare the effectiveness of verbal NE prompts against card-based and control methods.

Main Methods:

• Compared the original NE procedure with two streamlined versions in 3- to 7-year-old children.
• Streamlined versions included NE cards without pre-training and verbal NE prompts.
• Assessed the amount of open-ended recall elicited by each interview method.

Main Results:

• Children in the streamlined NE interview with verbal prompts provided significantly more information than the control group.
• The verbal prompt group recalled as much additional information as the full NE procedure group.
• Streamlined NE verbal prompts offer a practical enhancement for child forensic interviews.

Conclusions:

• Incorporating NE verbal prompts early in child interviews is an effective strategy.
• This method substantially increases the amount of information children provide via open-ended recall.
• Verbal NE prompts offer a time-efficient alternative to the full NE procedure.