Children's Testimonies
Every year some hundreds of thousands of children may be involved in the legal system. Most encounters have been with sexual assault cases. Although some children may be capable of giving an accurate testimony most are vulnerable to having their testimony and their memories distorted to the point where the truth may never be known. Children have problems distinguishing reality from fantasy, making them susceptible to the coaching of an authority figure. Award winning development psychologist Stephen J. Ceci, Ph.D., of Cornell University has conducted a laboratory research, studying some factors that can affect a child’s testimony. These conclude: Interviewer bias—When the interviewer (parent, therapist, investigator) believes he or she knows what happened and attempts to get the child to confirm it, ignoring anything the child says that does not conform with the interviewer’s bias and encouraging anything that does. Repeated Questions—Children, especially younger children are more likely to change their answers when asked the same yes or no question repeated during a single interview. Answers from children to yes or no questions repeated over several interviews are likely to become more firm and confid
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Approximate Word count = 3085
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)
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