How Parents Can Shape the Testimony of Young Witnesses

What is it about?

In this article, we provide a scientific foundation to argue that understanding the mnemonic impact of informal conversations with parents, particularly mothers, is the single most important challenge facing contemporary investigations of child sexual abuse. Studies in our labs and others demonstrate that when parents act on suspicion, misunderstanding, or misinformation, they are prone to incorporate false information into exchanges with their children that can contaminate children’s later independent reports and at times lead to elaborate and compelling accounts of events that never happened.

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Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

Why is it important?

In the context of child sexual abuse, allegations often arise during informal conversations between children and their parents, before official interviews. Given the potency of parents to taint children’s reports of their experiences, understanding the conditions under which parents can shape what children come to say is paramount to arriving at accurate and just conclusions in legal cases involving young witnesses. As such, we close the article with a series of recommendations for forensic professionals to examine the possible contamination of children’s formal statements from earlier and continuing conversations with their parents.

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