[The influence of cognitive abilities, age and characteristics of their sexual abuse experience on the statement of the presumed victims].
OBJECTIVE
The goal of the present study was to examine the effects of children's age, cognitive abilities and the characteristics of their sexual abuse experience on the quantity of details revealed about the sexual abuse in an investigative interview as a function of the type of questions asked. METHOD VERSION: Transcripts of 37 investigative interviews conducted with children between 6 and 12 years of age were analyzed according to the type of interviewer questions used and the quantity of details given by the child. The children's cognitive abilities were measured using the vocabulary, information and block design subtests of the WISC-III.


RESULTS
Results of multiple regression analyses indicate that children's age and verbal abilities as well as their relationship with the perpetrator explain 50% of the variance of the mean number of details obtained from the child following open-ended interviewer questions.


CONCLUSIONS
The results of this study suggest that the quantity of details obtained during an investigative interview is influenced not only by children's age but also by their verbal skills and the child-perpetrator relationship.
Dion
Jacinthe
J
Département de Psychologie, Université de Montréal, CP 6128, Succursale Centre-Ville, Montréal, Québec H3C 3J7, Canada.
Cyr
Mireille
M
Richard
Nancy
N
McDuff
Pierre
P
D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual / Q000523:psychology*; D003071:Cognition; D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007361:Intelligence Tests; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D012044:Regression Analysis