Effects Of Domestic Violence And Evaluation Of Children

一项研究方案涉及发展和评估提高儿童证人的信息量和评价其陈述的可信性的技术。几项研究已经证实，开放式问题比重点问题能引出更长、更详细的回答。在模拟情境和法庭情境中，由开放式回忆提示所引出的信息也更有可能是准确的。我们的发现加强了在许多实验室研究中获得的结果在法医背景下的普遍性。通过与美国、英国和以色列的调查机构合作，我们已经证明，通过遵循ssed设计的访谈协议，采访者可以增加儿童账户的长度和丰富程度，无论儿童的年龄如何。使用NICHD协议，使用开放式提示，大大增加了从4至13岁据称受害者中检索到的信息量。最近的分析表明，即使对孩子们进行采访，了解几个月或几年前发生的事件，情况也是如此。然而，儿童提供的信息类型存在重要的年龄差异。例如，正在进行的访谈分析表明，儿童提供的关于事件发生时间的信息的数量和质量随着年龄的增长而稳步增长。这项研究为儿童对经历事件的时间信息的欣赏提供了独特的见解，而大多数关于时间理解的研究都涉及实验室研究。目前正在与Friedman和Lyon合作进行一项研究，探讨据称受害者和采访者在法庭访谈中提到的时间属性。我们的研究还表明，年轻的证人回忆起的信息总量以及对开放式提示的反应，与所谓的受害者一样多。被指控的嫌疑人往往更不情愿，但那些同意谈话的人提供的关于他们经历的信息与被指控的受害者的同龄人一样多。目前正在比较受害者和罪犯对同一事件的叙述。其他现场实验表明，在协议指导的访谈中引入性别中立的解剖图也有助于儿童提供大量关于所谓虐待事件的额外细节。这些性别中立的画作在展示给年幼（4到7岁）的孩子时尤其富有成效。由于我们不知道报告的信息是否准确，我们与兰开斯特大学合作开展了一项研究，旨在评估幼儿提供的关于上演的经历事件和虚构事件的报告的准确性，使用NICHD协议和性别中立的图纸。该议定书的首次实验室测试预计将确定在法医背景下获取准确信息的最有效手段。在其他正在进行的实地研究中，我们正在探索不同类型的采访者的暗暗性提示和反复访谈对儿童反应的影响，以及使用协议在多大程度上促进了旨在起诉罪犯和保护儿童的决策和干预。由于许多儿童在接受采访时没有透露涉嫌虐待的情况，我们也在探索案件的特征和采访的动态，包括那些提出指控的儿童和那些没有或只是勉强提出指控的儿童。我们的目标是找出导致儿童不报告他们实际经历的虐待的因素。这些研究还应帮助我们制定可以在法医环境中非暗含性地执行的程序，以提高从调查访谈中得出的结论的敏感性和特异性。目前正在根据2003年8月由sed工作人员和合作者召集的关于延迟和不披露儿童性虐待的国际会议的记录编写一本书。另一个研究项目是关于虐待儿童和配偶对儿童和青少年发展的影响。在童年中期和青春期，家庭暴力似乎会影响子女对父母的看法。儿童和青少年对虐待他们的父母没有那么亲密的依恋，而配偶虐待对孩子对父母任何一方的依恋都没有明显的影响。与肇事者无关，青少年对母亲的依恋比对父亲的依恋影响更大，最近的家庭经历对孩子的行为问题和对父母的看法的影响比早期的经历更明显。研究的重点是虐待对父母身体虐待的受害者、父母间身体虐待的证人、受虐待的证人（受害者和证人）以及非暴力控制的影响。同时发生的行为问题和虐待形式之间的关系因举报人和研究阶段而异，尽管这种关系在受害者和受虐待证人组中的儿童以及以儿童为举报人时最为明显。研究结果表明，在调查家庭暴力对儿童行为问题的影响时，需要考虑虐待的年龄和形式。社会福利和社会福利研究所的研究人员与儿童虐待和忽视办公室、疾病控制中心、国家精神卫生研究所和司法部合作，开发了一种数据收集工具（儿童虐待日志），旨在帮助研究人员收集有关忽视、身体虐待和性虐待、遭受家庭暴力、心理虐待以及经常与儿童虐待同时发生的社会人口状况的系统信息。计算机化的格式允许个别研究人员根据需要创建更高阶的结构，并保留分类信息供感兴趣的研究人员使用。在独立的试点测试和修改之后，这些程序目前正在我们的实验室与爱荷华大学的同事合作进行进一步的测试。

One program of research has involved the development and assessment of techniques for enhancing the informativeness of child witnesses and for evaluating the credibility of their accounts. Several studies have confirmed that open-ended questions elicit longer and more detailed responses than more focused questions. Information elicited in response to open-ended prompts of recall memory is also more likely to be accurate in both analog and forensic contexts. Our findings have strengthened the generalizability of the results obtained in many laboratory studies to forensic context. In collaboration with investigative agencies in the US, UK, and Israel, we have shown that interviewers can increase the length and richness of children's accounts, regardless of children's ages, by following SSED-designed interview protocols. Use of the NICHD protocol dramatically increased the amount of information retrieved from 4- to 13-year-old alleged victims using open-ended prompts. Recent analyses show that this is the case even when children are interviewed about events that occurred either months or years earlier. There are important age differences in the types of information that children provide, however. For example, ongoing analyses of interviews show steady increases with age in the amount and quality of information children provide about the timing of events. This research has provided unique insight into children's developing appreciation of temporal information about experienced events, whereas most research on the understanding of time has involved laboratory research. A study exploring references to temporal attributes made by alleged victims and interviewers in context of court interviews is currently under way in collaboration with Friedman and Lyon. our research has also shown that young witnesses recall as much information in total, as well as in response to open-ended prompts, as alleged victims do. Alleged suspectstend to be more reluctant, but those who agree to talk provide as much information about their experiences as age mates who are alleged victims. Comparisons of victims' and offenders' accounts of the same incidents are currently under way. Other field experiments has shown that the introduction of gender-neutral anatomical drawings in the context of protocol-guided interviews also help children provide substantial numbers of additional details about the alleged incidents of abuse. The gender-neutral drawings were especially productive when shown to young (4- to 7-year-old) children. Because we do not know whether the reported information is accurate, we have initiated research, in collaboration with Lancaster University, designed to assess the accuracy of reports provided by young children about both staged experienced events and fictitious events, using the NICHD Protocol and gender neutral drawings. This first laboratory test of the protocol is expected to determine the most effective means of eliciting accurate information in forensic context. In other ongoing field research, we are exploring the effects of different types of interviewers' suggestive prompts and of repeated interviews on children's responses as well as the extent to which use of the protocol facilitates decisions and interventions designed to prosecute offenders and protect children. Because many children do not disclose suspected abuse when interviewed, we are also exploring case characteristics and the dynamics of interviews both with children who do make allegations and those who do not or only make allegations reluctantly. Our aim is to identify the factors that lead children to not report abuse that they actually experienced. These studies should also help us develop procedures that can be implemented nonsuggestively in forensic settings in order to enhance the sensitivity and specificity of conclusions drawn from investigative interviews. A book is currently in preparation, based on the proceedings of the international conference on delayed and nondisclosure of child sexual abuse, convened by the SSED staff and collaborators in August 2003. Another program of research is concerned with the effects of child and spouse abuse on the development of children and adolescents. In both middle childhood and adolescence, family violence appears to affect the offsprings' views of their parents. Children and adolescents feel less closely attached to parents who have abused them, whereas spouse abuse has no apparent effects on the children's attachments to either parent. Effects were greater on adolescents' reports of attachment to mothers than to their fathers, irrespective of perpetrator, and more recent family experiences had clearer effects on children's behavior problems and perceptions of their parents than earlier experiences did. Research has focused on the effects of abuse on victims of parental physical abuse, witnesses of inter-parental physical abuse, abused witnesses (victims and witnesses), and no-violence controls. The relationship between concurrent behavior problems and form of abuse varied by informant and study phase, although they were strongest for children in the victims and abused witnesses group and when based on children as the informants. The findings show the need to consider age and form of abuse when investigating the effects of domestic violence on children's behavior problems. A data collection instrument (Child Maltreatment Log), designed to help researchers collect systematic information about neglect, physical and sexual abuse, exposure to domestic violence, psychological maltreatment, and socio-demographic conditions which often co-occur with child maltreatment has been developed by SSED researchers in collaboration with the Office of Child Abuse and Neglect, the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Department of Justice. The computerized format permits individual researchers to create higher order constructs as needed and preserve categorized information for use by interested researchers. Following independent pilot tests and modifications, the programs is currently under further testing at our lab in collaboration with our colleagues at the University of Iowa.