Facilitating Maltreated Children's Disclosures

描述（由申请人提供）：促进受虐待儿童的披露虐待儿童是对儿童福祉的最严重威胁之一。与此同时，很大比例的受虐待儿童从未披露虐待情况，披露方式不完整和不令人信服，或撤回指控。到目前为止，很少有科学研究直接和实验性地研究克服披露动机障碍的有效程序。鉴于受虐待儿童的披露对保护儿童至关重要，必须了解影响这些儿童披露虐待行为意愿的因素以及他们报告的准确性和完整性。拟议的研究方案将涉及一系列新颖的实验室和实地实验研究，旨在确定方便受虐待儿童披露的采访方法，同时尽量减少虚假指控。该项目将实现四个具体目标：（1）开发新的准备方法，在不增加虚假报告可能性的情况下，促使受虐待儿童披露情况;（2）确定最大限度地提高受虐待儿童披露情况的准确性和完整性的问题类型;（3）确定准确、完整和可信报告的口头和非口头指标;（4）实地访谈中对新访谈方法的有效性进行实验检验。目标1和2将涉及实验室实验研究，受虐待和未受虐待的儿童在SES和种族方面相匹配，他们经历了阶段性事件，以便了解地面真相。访谈技术将系统地变化，以评估技术如何影响儿童的披露。其次，目标3将涉及对儿童行为的计算机分析，以确定真实和虚假报告的语言和非语言指标，以及专业人士和非专业人士对儿童可信度的看法。最后，在目标4中，通过实验室实验确定的最有前途的方法将用于现场实验，直接测试社会服务机构确定为潜在受害者的儿童中虐待披露的采访创新的影响。这是世界上唯一的这种性质的研究计划：它结合了实验室和现场实验研究方法，以了解受虐待儿童的披露和不披露。这项研究代表了一个前所未有的机会，以推进儿童发展和发展心理病理学的理论，并提供关键的洞察最佳实践的采访策略，优化准确和可信的披露虐待儿童。在社会和法律的服务中实施这些做法将改进调查虐待行为的程序，从而促进和保护儿童及其家庭。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Facilitating Maltreated Children's Disclosures Child maltreatment is one of the most serious threats to children's well-being. At the same time, substantial percentages of maltreated children never disclose maltreatment, disclose in an incomplete and unconvincing manner, or recant their allegations. As yet, little scientific research has directly and experimentally examined effective procedures for overcoming motivational barriers to disclosure. Given the critical importance of maltreated children's disclosure for the protection of children, it is imperative to understand factors affecting these children's willingness to disclose abuse and the accuracy and completeness of their reports. The proposed program of research will involve a series of novel laboratory and field experimental studies designed to identify interviewing methods that facilitate maltreated children's disclosures while minimizing false allegations. The project will address four specific aims: 1) To develop novel preparatory methods for eliciting disclosures from maltreated children without increasing the likelihood of false reports; 2) to identify question-types that maximize the accuracy and completeness of maltreated children's disclosures; 3) to identify verbal and nonverbal indices of accurate, complete, and credible reports; and 4) to experimentally test the efficacy of novel interviewing methods in field interviews. Aims 1 and 2 will involve laboratory experimental studies with maltreated and non-maltreated children matched for SES and ethnicity who experience staged events so that ground truth is known. Interviewing techniques will be varied systematically to assess the how the techniques affect children's disclosures. Next, Aim 3 will involve computerized analyses of children's behaviors to identify the verbal and nonverbal indices of true and false reports and evaluations of professionals' and lay persons' perceptions of children's credibility. Finally, in Aim 4, the most promising approaches identified via the lab experiments will be employed in a field experiment that directly tests the effects of interviewing innovations on abuse disclosures in children identified as potential victims by social services. This is the only research program of this nature in the world: it combines laboratory and field experimental research methods to understand disclosure and non-disclosure in maltreated children. The research represents an unprecedented opportunity to advance theories of child development and developmental psychopathology and provide critical insight into best practice interview strategies that optimize accurate and credible disclosures in maltreated children. The implementation of such practices in social and legal services will improve the process by which maltreatment is investigated, and thus promote and protect children and their families.