1. Interviewing Children
Skills, Principles, and Protocols:
Child Development
and Linguistic Implications

2. Interviewing Children Contents
Skills
Principles
Protocols
Child Development
Linguistic Implications
Cultural Considerations

3. Basic Interview Skills
Inquiry: process of asking questions
Reflecting: process of communicating to the client that you have heard them
Observing: non-verbal behaviors; incorporating this info into your communication with the client
Listening: 2 ears & 1 mouth
Evaluating: process of making sense of what you have been told; decisions, reframe

4. Basic Interview Principles
Child friendly: their best interest comes first
Sit on the same level
Limit # of words used in a sentence
Avoid pronouns
Use the child’s language and terms
Check the child’s understanding of what you have said; ask the child to repeat

5. Basic Interview Principles
If the child doesn’t understand: re-phase
Avoid sentences with time sequences
Patience
Language effects understanding
Paraphrase to make sure you understand the child’s version
Summarize to review for the child

6. Child Interviews: A Comparison
Clinical
Goal: Understand child’s psychological state and overall functioning
client: child; parent
Role of Professional: therapeutic/advocate
Stance: Pro-child
Forensic
Goal: Obtaining uncontaminated data
Client: Child’s needs are a priority, however, the client = judicial system
Role of Professional: fact finder
Stance: Neutral

7. Child Interviews: A Comparison
Clinical
Assumption: Trustworthiness of child; important suggestive reality
Technique: Therapeutic
Forensic
Assumption: Consider multiple hypothesis and questioning reflects this; important objective reality
Technique: legally defensible

8. Forensic Interview Protocol
Rapport
Goal is to establish comfort, communication, competence
child drawing
Truth/Lie component
Reliability instructions
family, house, & school drawing

9. Forensic Interview Protocol
Anatomy Identification
Goal is to identify the child’s terms for body parts
Use appropriate drawings
gender
age
race

10. Forensic Interview Protocol
Touch Inquiry
Goal is to explore touches he or she likes;
Touches he or she doesn’t like;
Where on the body he or she likes touches; doesn’t like touches;
Questions will move from general to specific

11. Forensic Interview Protocol
Abuse Scenario
Goal to to explore any statements about abusive touches:
Did anything happen?
Fact Finding
Verbal disclosure
Dolls: use if verbal disclosure is made

12. Forensic Interview Protocol
Closure/Prevention Scenario
Goal is to help the child identify who are “safe” people to tell if it happens again; and to
Thank the child for hard work, not for what they told

13. Thoughts to Keep in Mind
Am I going to fast?
Am I hearing this child?
Am I sacrificing the child’s interests for some other objective?
Is my attention on the child’s words, behavior, and emotions?
Am I failing to reassure the child or to remove blocks to communication?

14. Thoughts to Keep in Mind
Am I too anxious about “getting the information?”
Am I trying to “confirm” rather than “discover” abuse?
Am I driven by a desire to “get the offender?”
Am I concerned about how I’m going to look if the interview doesn’t “produce?”

15. Child Language Development
Very young children can tell us what they know; provided we ask the right questions; and we ask them in the right way
2-3 year olds can recall & report past experiences (Hewitt, 1999)
3 year olds have testified competently and credibly in court (State v Brovold; Minn. 1991)

16. Language Development Pre-School
Use and interpret language literally
Don’t handle abstractions well
Have difficulty collecting ideas into categories
Use words for time, distance, size, etc. long before they understand meaning
Define words in simple, action-oriented ways

17. Language Development Preschool
Difficulty with pronoun reference
Difficulty with negatives
May supply responses to questions even if they have no knowledge
Do best with simple sentences: Subject, Verb, Object.
Focus on one aspect of a question

18. Language Development Pre-School
Don’t organize events like adults; may omit settings, descriptors, etc.
Still acquiring language
Usually don’t know they don’t understand something
Believe, in general, that adults speak the truth, are sincere, and would not trick them

19. Language Development School Age (7-10)
Still have difficulty with abstract concepts
Still struggle with processing complex questions
Still make errors with passives and pronoun preference
Still confused by complex negation
Still not mature at organizing details

20. Language Development School Age (7-10)
Still unequipped to deal with adult insincerity; sarcasm, irony, etc.
May still believe adults, in general, tell the truth

21. Language Development Adolescents (11-18)
May or may not have developed adult narrative skills
May not understand time as a historical and day-to-day concept
Some difficulty with complex negation
Confused by linguistic ambiguity: ads, idioms, metaphors, jokes, etc.

22. Language Development Adolescents (11-18)
May lose track of long, complex questions
Reluctant to ask for clarification or acknowledge they don’t understand
Many teens may be developmentally “stuck”

23. Language Development Key Suggestions
Use simple, common, everyday words and phrases
Use names and places instead of pronouns
Stay away from negatives

24. Language Development Key Suggestions
Use questions/comments that keep the # of ideas to a minimum
Start your questions/comments with the main idea
Remember you are speaking with a child

25. Language Development Key Dynamics
We don’t interview children
interview one child at a time
age, disability/ability, trauma, cultural differences
Language shaped by experience
see, hear, experience
how words are used; the context
significant variability

26. Language Development Key Dynamics
Children & adults don’t speak the same language
Language is not an all or nothing affair
Inconsistency = normal
Children are literal in their approach to language; cognitively - moving from general to particular is not developed

27. Language Development Key Dynamics
Adult-like use doesn’t reflect adult-like understanding: language & cognition
Difficulty with multi-part, multi-idea questions
Pausing is productive
Children will not necessarily tell you that they don’t understand

28. Language Development Key Dynamics
Framing is good
Children’s responses may not be answers to your questions:
Reciting cultural lists not the same as ability to understand the contents; alphabet, days of the week, etc.
Children acquire the ability to provide a narrative account = usually sometime in teens

29. Language Development Key Dynamics
Some families talk to each other; some do not
Familiarity matter
So does culture
Young children can be competent

30. Interviewing Children Pitfalls
Prepositions: most, not all acquired by 5-6 years old
Pronouns/pointing words - mastery is slow
Specific words:
ahead of/behind; always/never; any; ask/tell; before/after; big; different/same; forget; first/last; inside; know/think/guess/sure; more/less; neither/either; some/all; touch; yesterday/today/tomorrow

31. Interviewing Children Pitfalls
Legalese
Complex sentences
abstractions & low frequency words; ambiguity; embedding; left-branching; negation; nominalizations; passives
Two or more questions into one
Asking restricted choice questions
Asking DUR…..X questions

32. Interviewing Children Pitfalls
Asking manipulative questions
“I believe you told us….”; “Isn’t it a fact…”
Asking tag questions
Shifting topics suddenly
Asking about relative concepts
age, dimensions, kinship, number, time
Asking the difference between truth/lie

33. Interviewing Children Pitfalls
Asking children if they understand you
Asking why questions
Asking how questions
Asking non-specific questions
Asking children questions that require tracking: who said what to whom when
Asking Jell-O questions

34. Cultural Considerations
Culture: a constantly changing pattern of behaviors relating to the values and beliefs of a group of people through which they adapt to one another and their physical and social environment; or
Culture influences beliefs, behaviors, and choices

35. Cultural Considerations Native Americans
There is no resource more vital to the continued existence and integrity of the Indian Tribes than their children (ICWA).
Strengthening families strengthens cultures
Child rearing in the Indian culture is not a private affair: parents, extended family, clans, and tribes share responsibility

36. Cultural Considerations Native Americans
Family values, customs, and traditions vary among tribes;
Also vary among different families of the same tribe;
So each family must be viewed individually;
Being Native may depend on tribal affiliation, degree of assimilation, and family history

37. Interviewing Children Cultural Considerations
Native American
Historic distrust based on many years of exploitation and discrimination (note taking)
Warm up or “talk stories”; warm, informal, light, personal conversations; humor
Low key; non-directive; authentic & genuine demonstration of concern and active implementation of a desire to help

38. Interviewing Children Cultural Considerations
Native American
Pausing between phrases, sentences or questions considered an integral part of communication; could be interpreted negatively or result in lost information if questions come to rapidly
May lower head or not make eye contact as a sign of respect
May use a subdued tone of voice

39. Interviewing Children Cultural Considerations
Native American
kinship terms may refer to other than relatives
Time may be marked by seasons, ceremonies, or activities; forget clock time; don’t rush
Unquestioning loyalty and respect for elders

40. Cultural Considerations African American
Historic oppression & discrimination
Continued economic oppression through differential job access
Heterogeneous family types: two, single, blended, extended - strong kinship bonds
Strong work orientation

41. Cultural Considerations African Americans
Adaptability of family roles
High achievement orientation through education
Religious orientation

42. Interviewing Children Cultural Considerations
African American
Rapid overlapping speech is not viewed as rude
loyalty and respect for elders
Regional patois

43. Cultural Considerations Hispanic Americans
Historic oppression & discrimination
Continued economic oppression through differential job access
Diverse
Importance of family/Compradrazgo
Church
Machismo

44. Interview Children Cultural Considerations
Hispanic Americans:
Distrust
“Talk stories”
Low key, non-directive, genuine approach
Bilingual

45. Cultural Considerations Asian-Pacific Islander Americans
Diverse group; 60 separate ethnic groups
“Yellow Race” & “Brown Race”
Filial piety; parents respected, revered, and obeyed; hierarchy based on age & gender
Family/Clan honor - more important than individual members; shame controls
Harmony - subordinate needs for the sake of peace

46. Interviewing Children Cultural Considerations
Asian-Pacific Islander Americans:
Generation conflicts
Distrust - usually don’t discuss family issues with outsiders
“Talk stories” - oral traditions
May respond to a direct, active and structured approach
Speak little unless spoken to

47. Interviewing Children Cultural Considerations
Asian-Pacific Islander Americans:
Loyal and respectful of elders
Kinship terms may refer to friends of the family
Harmony and self-effacement are valued
Bilingual
Interpreters

48. Cultural Competence
A long term process of expanding horizons, thinking critically about issues of power and oppression, and acting appropriately.
Acquisition of info: world view, customs, language, common history, family patterns, relationship & parenting styles, etc.

49. Cultural Competence
Culturally competent individuals develop a mixture of beliefs, attitudes, knowledge, and skills that help them establish trust and communication with others.

50. References 1st witness Child Abuse Resource Center protocols/materials
Cohen, Neil. (1992). Child Welfafe: A Multicultural Focus. Needham Heights, MA.: Allyn P& Bacon.

51. References
Graffam-Walker, Anne (1999). Handbook on Questioning Children: A Linguistic Perspective. Wash. D.C.: ABA Center on Children and the Law.
Rauch, Julia, B. (1993). Assessment: A Sourcebook for Social Work Practice. Milwaukee, WI.: Families International Inc.