APA News Release
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Date: June 2, 1995 Contact: Doug Fizel Public Affairs Office (202)
336-5700
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New Book Examines Controversy Over Children's Testimony
Offers Information and Advice for Parents, Investigators, Therapists,
Attorneys, Expert Witnesses and Judges
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WASHINGTON -- More than 200,000 children may be involved in the legal
system in any given year; upwards of 13,000 of them --
disproportionately preschool-age -- may be testifying in sexual abuse
trials. But according to the authors of a new book, Jeopardy in the
Courtroom: A Scientific Analysis of Children's Testimony, published by
the American Psychological Association (APA), while even preschool-age
children are quite capable of providing accurate testimony, they are
also more vulnerable to having their testimony and their memories
distorted to the point that, in some cases, the truth may never be
known.
Award-winning developmental psychologists Stephen J. Ceci, Ph.D., of
Cornell University, and Maggie Bruck, Ph.D., of McGill University, say
they wrote the book in an attempt to educate professionals who deal
with child witnesses, including mental health professionals who assess
and/or treat children suspected to have been sexually abused, forensic
investigators who interview child witnesses, attorneys and judges. It
is also intended for nonprofessionals who have become captivated by
highly publicized cases involving accusations of childhood sexual
abuse. While the book focuses on children's testimony in sexual abuse
cases, its message is relevant for the entire range of cases involving
children as witnesses, including acrimonious custody decisions,
neglect proceedings and witnesses to crimes.
Public and professional opinion about the credibility of children as
witnesses in sexual abuse cases has been sharply divided, the authors
note.  One side contends that when children disclose details of sexual
abuse, no matter what techniques were used to obtain their disclosure,
they must be believed because children do not generate false reports
of their own sexual victimization. The other side depicts children as
helpless sponges who soak up interviewers' suggestions and regurgitate
these suggestions in court.
In the authors' view, "such extreme positions about children's
credibility are more appropriately categorized under the rubric of
'partisan advocacy' than under the heading of 'scientifically derived
insights.'"
Drs. Ceci and Bruck base their conclusions on a thorough review of the
entire body of scientific literature on children's suggestibility and
memory and they illustrate many of their points with excerpts from the
records of actual cases which involved children's testimony; cases as
old as the Salem Witch Trials and as recent as the Little Rascals Day
Care case in Edenton, North Carolina, in which two convictions were
overturned on appeal in early May.
Among their conclusions:
   * While preschool-age children are capable of providing
     forensically relevant testimony, they are more suggestible than
     older children who are, in turn, more suggestible than adults.
   * Through suggestive interviewing techniques and repeated
     questioning, children can be led to get wrong not only peripheral
     details, but the central gist of events they experienced, even
     events affecting their bodies that could have sexual
     implications.
   * There is no "Pinocchio Test" (scientifically acceptable test or
     procedure analogous to Pinocchio's nose growing longer when he
     didn't tell the truth) to determine whether allegations that
     emerge after repeated interviews using suggestive techniques are
     accurate or merely the product of the suggestive interview
     procedures.
   * Whenever possible (and as soon as possible) interviews with
     children in cases where sexual abuse is suspected should be
     electronically preserved (audio- or videotaped), ideally from the
     first interview on -- not just transcripts or notes and not just
     from the point when a child begins to disclose.
   * Although anatomically detailed dolls are seen by some therapists
     and investigators as useful tools in helping young children who
     were sexually abused describe what happened to them, the authors
     conclude:
     "We feel at this point that there has been sufficient concern
     raised in the literature and enough evidence of potential misuse,
     without sufficiently counterbalanced evidence to the contrary, to
     urge that dolls not be used diagnostically, at least not with
     very young children."
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