The effect of intellectual disability on the adherence of child witnesses to a "story grammar" framework.
BACKGROUND
This study examined the ability of 78 children (aged 9-12 years) with an intellectual disability (ID) to provide a narrative account of a staged event they had participated in four days earlier.


METHODS
The children were interviewed using open-ended questions. The quality of their responses (using a story grammar framework) was compared with that of two control groups: mainstream children matched for mental and chronological age.


RESULTS
While the children with an ID and those matched for mental age provided narratives of similar length and used similar proportions of each story grammar element, the ID group was less likely than both control groups to provide a narrative account at all. Among those children with an ID who did provide a narrative account, their accounts included proportionately fewer story grammar elements than those of both control groups.


CONCLUSIONS
Children with an ID are disadvantaged as witnesses with respect to their ability to provide a detailed and coherent narrative account of events under optimal investigative interviewing conditions.
Murfett
Romana
R
Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia.
Powell
Martine B
MB
Snow
Pamela C
PC
D000367:Age Factors; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000523:psychology; D004495:Education of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D007360:Intelligence; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D033262:Narration; D012660:Semantics