TY - JOUR
T1 - Children's reports of body touching in medical examinations
T2 - The benefits and risks of using body diagrams
AU - Bruck, Maggie
AU - Kelley, Kristen
AU - Poole, Debra Ann
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 American Psychological Association.
PY - 2016/2/1
Y1 - 2016/2/1
N2 - In 3 sections of the same interview, children (N = 107, ages 3-8 years) were asked about body touches during previous medical examinations that included genital and anal touches for some children. First, in a free recall phase all children were asked to describe what had happened during the medical procedures. In the second and third sections they answered questions about body touches in 2 conditions, with body diagrams (BDs) and without body diagrams (no-BDs), with the order of conditions counterbalanced. Within each interview condition, the children answered cued-recall questions about touching and a set of recognition (yes-no) questions about touches to individual body parts. Cued recall with BDs elicited a greater number of correct sexual touch reports, but also more forensically relevant errors from the younger group. Cued-recall performance with BDs was largely identical to recognition performance without BDs. Taken together, the paucity of research on BDs and the current findings suggest 2 interim conclusions: (a) the use of BDs to elicit touch disclosures is not yet an evidence-based practice, and (b) there is a pressing need for research that examines promising approaches for encouraging accurate disclosures of abuse.
AB - In 3 sections of the same interview, children (N = 107, ages 3-8 years) were asked about body touches during previous medical examinations that included genital and anal touches for some children. First, in a free recall phase all children were asked to describe what had happened during the medical procedures. In the second and third sections they answered questions about body touches in 2 conditions, with body diagrams (BDs) and without body diagrams (no-BDs), with the order of conditions counterbalanced. Within each interview condition, the children answered cued-recall questions about touching and a set of recognition (yes-no) questions about touches to individual body parts. Cued recall with BDs elicited a greater number of correct sexual touch reports, but also more forensically relevant errors from the younger group. Cued-recall performance with BDs was largely identical to recognition performance without BDs. Taken together, the paucity of research on BDs and the current findings suggest 2 interim conclusions: (a) the use of BDs to elicit touch disclosures is not yet an evidence-based practice, and (b) there is a pressing need for research that examines promising approaches for encouraging accurate disclosures of abuse.
KW - Body diagrams
KW - Forensic interviewing of children
KW - Interview aids
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U2 - 10.1037/law0000076
DO - 10.1037/law0000076
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84958965307
SN - 1076-8971
VL - 22
SP - 1
EP - 11
JO - Psychology, Public Policy, and Law
JF - Psychology, Public Policy, and Law
IS - 1
ER -