Table Of ContentWilliam T. O'Donohue · Matthew Fanetti
Editors
Forensic
Interviews
Regarding Child
Sexual Abuse
A Guide to Evidence-Based Practice
Forensic Interviews Regarding Child Sexual Abuse
William T. O’Donohue (cid:129) Matthew Fanetti
Editors
Forensic Interviews
Regarding Child
Sexual Abuse
A Guide to Evidence-Based Practice
Editors
William T. O’Donohue Matthew Fanetti
Department of Psychology Department of Psychology
University of Nevada Missouri State University
Reno, NV , USA Springfi eld , MO, USA
ISBN 978-3-319-21096-4 ISBN 978-3-319-21097-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-21097-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015951953
Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London
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Preface
D uring the decades of the 1980s and 1990s, a signifi cant problem arose. General
concern regarding child sexual abuse dramatically increased because of aggressive
media coverage of cases of alleged abuse at several child daycare centers potentially
involving hundreds of children (e.g., McMartin, Fells Acres, and Kelly Michaels).
Fears of the widespread abuse of children seemed to overpower the limited scope of
professional’s abilities to accurately understand children’s ability to make accurate
report about such matters. The public and many professionals become polarized.
The arguments of one side took positions such as “children never lie about sexual
abuse,” or, on the other hand, “children are just too unreliable to serve as accurate
witnesses.” Of course, both of these positions are overly simplistic, but a lack of
relevant research—or a lack of research integration—had failed to resolve these
questions in the minds of the public or in the minds of many professionals.
B ut fortunately this is a problem where the need for scientifi c knowledge seems
to have been at least partly answered. Well-known researchers such as Professors
Elizabeth Loftus, Steven Ceci, Gail Goodman, Maggie Bruck, David Finkelhor,
and James Wood as well as others drove a push for knowledge so strongly that the
fi eld has begun to coalesce around principles of memory, suggestibility, and sound
forensic interviewing practices that answer the question, “How did these reports of
abuse happen?”
If there is a set of problems that the fi eld of psychology can be credited with
improving, both dramatically and quickly, then this must be foremost among them.
As the fi eld fi gures out how to apply relevant scientifi c principles to very diffi cult
assessment problems like child sexual abuse, specifi c recommendations emerge as
“best-practices” or “guidelines” to reduce errors and mistakes. This does not mean
that the assessment of sexual abuse will no longer improve or develop. Quite the
contrary: The scientifi c push to understand forensic interviewing and event memory
will likely encourage ever more study and refi nement. But the fi eld has come a long
way from the interviewing practices used in the McMartin case, for example.
v
vi Preface
The purpose of this book is to gather some of the most notable results in the
scientifi c pursuit of knowledge related to child sexual abuse assessment, and to
allow the working professional to better understand the problems, demands, and
practices that will comprise an effective method of assessing these children. We
hope that this encourages the use of good practices which can only strengthen the
pursuit of justice for all concerned.
Acknowledgements
W e would like to thank our editor Janice Stern for all her expertise, good will, and
support. I would also like to thank my family, Jane, Katie, and Anna for all the ways
they make my life wonderful.
—Bill
I want to thank my children, Alex and Lauren, for making me so proud and showing
me what life is supposed to be about. I enjoy watching you grow and look forward
to seeing you fi nd ever more love and happiness in your lives. I would also like to
thank my wife, Svetla, for her love and devotion through the years. Without you,
I am lost.
—Matthew
vii
Contents
1 History of Forensic Interviewing ........................................................... 1
Cara Laney and Elizabeth F. Loftus
2 The Purpose of the Forensic Interview: A Lawyer’s Perspective ....... 19
Kresta Daly
3 Working with the Multidisciplinary Team ........................................... 41
Kristen J. MacLeod
4 Forensic Interviewing and Charging: A Prosecutor’s Perspective ...... 57
Mark Krueger
5 Childhood Memory: An Update from the Cognitive
Neuroscience Perspective ........................................................................ 81
Dwight J. Peterson , Kevin T. Jones , Jaclyn A. Stephens ,
Filiz Gözenman , and Marian E. Berryhill
6 The Process of Disclosure for Child Victims ........................................ 107
Rachel Fondren Happel
7 Disclosure Failures: Statistics, Characteristics,
and Strategies to Address Them ............................................................ 123
Kathleen C oulborn Faller
8 Understanding Suggestibility ................................................................. 141
Stephen Ceci , Amelia Hritz , and Caisa Royer
9 Forensic Interviewing for Child Sexual Abuse:
Why Psychometrics Matters .................................................................. 155
Scott O. Lilienfeld
10 Basic Principles of Interviewing the Child Eyewitness........................ 179
Jonni L. Johnson , Kelly McWilliams , Gail S. Goodman ,
Alexandra E. Shelley , and Brianna Piper
ix
