Children in the incriminating condition gave many more inaccurate responses that the children in the neutral condition (cited in Ceci and Bruck 2002).
In relation to this, interviewer bias can have a huge effect on the behaviour of children. For example, Ceci and Leichtman found that when an interviewer is given misinformation, 34% of three to four year olds corroborated one or more of the events the interviewer falsely believed had occurred. This is very relevant as children are often put in therapy when there are suspicions of child abuse. Therefore, if the therapist believes that the child has been abused, the child may give information about being abused as the therapy goes one. Ceci and Leichtman also found that as the interviewer persisted in asking questions based on his or her false hypothesis, a significant number of children abandoned their contradictions and endorsed the interviewer's hypothesis. Similar findings have been reported by petit et al (1990) and Clarke-Stewart et al (1989). It would be useful if you could consider this for the interviewing used on the children in this case. .
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There are further interviewing techniques that have different effects on children. For example, Goodman and Reed (1986) found that specific questions elicit the most correct information from six year olds (69% of correct information compared to 74% for adults). They found that child said little during "free recall" technique. However there are problems with using specific questioning as they are in effect, leading questions. Therefore, it might be useful to use a combination of specific question and free recall in attempts to prevent using too many leading questions. Another problem with interviewing children is that there is often repeated questioning of the child during the investigation. Ceci and Bruck (2002) argue that there are a number of reasons why repeated questioning can have a negative effect on the testimony of the child.
