EFFECTS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND EVALUATION OF CHILDREN'S TESTIMONY

该项目包括两个研究项目。主要方案的目标是开发和评估提高儿童证人信息量和评估其陈述可信度的技术。 该研究项目中的大多数研究都集中在访谈者风格与幼儿提供的信息质量之间的关系上。几项研究证实，开放式问题比重点更突出的问题得到更长和更详细的回答，无论经历的事件数量和语言（英语，瑞典语或希伯来语）进行采访。其他研究表明，采访者可以通过遵循SSED设计的协议来增加儿童帐户的长度和丰富性，该协议旨在探索回忆记忆，并减少对更容易引出错误信息的更集中的问题的依赖。 以色列、美国和联合王国的调查机构正在对这些面谈程序进行评估。计划于2001年在瑞典开始实施。 目前特别关注的是可能影响对幼儿以及不愿透露情况的儿童进行面谈的因素。 另一项研究的目的是探讨家庭暴力对儿童的影响，这些儿童要么是身体虐待的受害者，要么是配偶虐待的证人，要么既是受害者又是证人，要么既不是受害者也不是证人。 1988/1989年首次对一组8至12岁的儿童进行了评估。1995年和1996年再次对这些儿童、他们的父母和教师进行了访谈，对数据的分析仍有待进行。以前的报告说明了不同举报人关于家庭暴力和儿童适应的报告之间的重大差异所产生的影响。

This project involves two programs of research. The goal of the major program is to develop and assess techniques for enhancing the informativeness of child witnesses and for evaluating the credibility of their accounts. Most studies in the research program are focused on the relationship between interviewer style and the quality of information provided by young children. Several studies have confirmed that open-ended questions elicit longer and more detailed responses than more focused questions, regardless of the number of the incidents experienced and the language (English, Swedish, or Hebrew) in which the interview was conducted. Other studies have shown that interviewers can increase the length and richness of children's accounts by following SSED-designed protocols designed to probe recall memory and reduce the reliance on more focused questions which are more likely to elicit erroneous information. These interview protocols are being evaluated by investigative agencies in Israel, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Implementation is scheduled to begin in Sweden in 2001. Factors that might affect interviews of very young children, as well as children who are reluctant to disclose, are currently of special interest. The goal of the other study is to explore the effects of domestic violence on children who were either victims of physical abuse, witnesses of spousal abuse, both victims and witnesses, or neither victims nor witnesses. A group of children were first assessed in 1988/9 when they were between 8 and 12 years of age. The children, their parents, and their teachers were reinterviewed in 1995 and 1996 and analyses of the data remain to be conducted. Earlier reports illustrated the implications of major discrepancies between reports by different informants concerning both family violence and children's adjustment.