"The field of children's testimony is in turmoil". "In this review, we place the current disagreement in historical context and describe psychological and legal views of child witnesses held by scolars since the turn of the 20th century". "... the past 15 years have been the most active in terms of the number of published studies". "A synthesis of this research points three 'families' of factors - cognitive, social, and biological - that must be considered if one is to understand seemingly contradictory interpretations of the findings. We conclude that there are reliable age differences in suggestibility but that even very young children are capable of recalling much that is forensically relevant."
Although the false allegation of child sexual abuse does not always start with a child, the child becomes the key to unlocking the mystery of why the allegations are made, and what validity, if any, should be given to the statements made by a young child. The following article is published in three parts: Part I deals with how we measure credibility. The legal competency of the child witness and the manner by which a child learns through the interrogation process is discussed. The conclusion is that children under age ten are incompetent and poor witnesses but attorneys should prepare carefully in these cases. Several practice tips are given.
Fifty non-abused and ten abused children were given anatomically-correct dolls and their behaviors were observed. None of the abused children had been previously interviewed or treated for sexual abuse. For seven of the children, followmg the initial portion of the interview, the interviewer deliberately used leading questions, cues, modeling and reinforcement in an attempt to elicit sexual behaviors with the dolls.
There were no differences in the behavior and responses to the dolls between the abused and the non-abused children. In general, the children did not identify the gender of the dolls on the basis of primary sexual characteristics. However, two-fifths of the children spontaneously talked about and/or touched the dolls' genitals and three-fifths placed the dolls in clear sexual positions and/or played with the dolls in an overtly aggressive manner. Six of the seven children who were given leading questions, cues, modeling and reinforcement responded by performing the behaviors that were cued, modeled and reinforced.
The authors conclude that information obtained by the use of dolls in interviews to assess whether a child has been sexually abused will probably be misleading. The dolls are likely to increase the error and decrease the reliability of the information gathered.
De toepassing van de 'poppenmethode' ondervindt de laatste tijd veel kritiek. Er is inmiddels een aantal onderzoeksrapporten verschenen over het gebruik van deze methode en sommige geven aan dat kinderen die seksueel zijn misbruikt anders op de poppen reageren dan kinderen die dat niet zijn. Die onderzoeken bevatten echter methodologische fouten die de onderzoeksresultaten niet-valide maken. Met toepassing van de stelling van Bayes, is te berekenen dat het percentage valspositieven in de praktijk zeer hoog is. Verder is gebleken dat bij de toepassing van de poppenmethode fundamentele fouten in de vraagstelling sluipen. Analyse van een aantal praktijkvoorbeelden laat zien dat deze fouten geen uitzonderingen zijn (Wakefield en Underwager, 1988). In veel gevallen gaan onderzoekers er vanaf de aanvang van de sessie al vanuit dat misbruik heeft plaatsgevonden, en beschouwen zij het als hun taak het bewijs ervoor op tafel te leggen. Daardoor is de ondervraging niet objectief. Gesloten, suggestieve, en dwingende vragen worden gesteld, bepaalde handelingen worden voorgedaan en het kind wordt voor zijn reacties selectief beloond of gestraft. De poppenspelsessie wordt een leerproces. Het kind leert wat het moet zeggen en doen om de ondervrager tevreden te stellen.
DD: Problemen in de Amerikaanse justitie met betrekking tot de vervolging van (sexueel) misbruik, en hoe deze kunnen leiden tot valse beschuldigingen en veroordelingen en andere problemen.
München: Prof. Undeutsch (Univ. Köln) ist einer der bekanntesten Gerichtsgutachter Deutschlands. Er behandelt das Thema zeitgeist-non-konform unideologisch und beschreibt seine Methode der "kriterienbezogenen Aussageanalyse", also die Glaubwürdigkeitsbegutachtung aufgrund exakt definierbarer, semiobjektiver, deskriptiver Kriterien. Kapitelüberschriften: Die Verbreitung des sexuellen Mißbrauchs im Laufe der Zeit; Wege zur Aufklärung sexuellen Mißbrauchs; Unzuverlässige Indikatoren; Körperliche Befunde; Verhaltensauffälligkeiten; Psychodiagnostische Verfahren; Zuverlässige Wege zur Sachaufklärung und zur Täterermittlung; Die Beurteilung des Wahrheitsgehaltes von Aussagen möglicher Opfer.
The question of how children can say sexual things happened to them when nothing happened is addressed in terms of the way children are interviewed in sexual abuse cases. It is a mistake to assume children are lying; instead the child's behavior should be understood in relationship to the environment which includes adult social influence. The facts from social psychology are discussed in relationship to the interrogation process and typical techniques such as anatomical dolls, play therapy, books and drawings are evaluated. The results of an ongoing project of analyzing audiotapes and videotapes of actual interviews is described. It is concluded that the way children are typically interviewed is frequently leading, suggestive and coercive and has a high potential for introducing error and reducing the reliability of their statements. When there is no corroborating data or admission from the alleged perpetrator, children's statements standing along must be treated cautiously.
DD: Manieren waarop de ondervraging van kinderen m.b.t. sexueel misbruik fout kan lopen, problemen met 'indicatoren' van sexueel misbruik. Gaat in op de vraag wanneer de getuigenis van kind-'slachtoffers' wel en niet betrouwbaar is, en analyseert twee transcripties van verhoren om te laten zien wat er fout is gegaan.
WWW: "Return of the Furies is encyclopedic in its scope. It provides us with an in-depth understanding of the origins of the false-memory phenomenon, the methods by which it has been promulgated, and the people who are perpetuating it. The book is convincingly written with hundreds of useful references. I do not know of a more comprehensive book on this timely subject." - Dr. Richard Gardner, Columbia University.
Hollida Wakefield (Clinical Psychologist) and Dr. Ralph Underwager (Clinical Psychologist and Lutheran Minister) were the first people to raise the alarm over false allegations of child sexual abuse more than twenty years ago, at a time when most authorities in the helping professions were making unsupportable claims such as, "children never lie about abuse." As with many pioneers, they were vilified for their work and even today are often ignored. This is quite surprising, since everything they wrote and said has become mainstream opinion among professional forensic psychologists. Return of the Furies, their most recent book, is in the tradition of their previous work; hard hitting, well argued and with a monumental marshalling of facts. - Benjamin Rossen.