Analyse comparative de la description du suspect lors d’entrevues d’enquête policière avec des enfants victimes d’agressions sexuelles
Two elements may influence the number of details revealed by a child about his or her sexual abuse: The type of question asked by the investigator and the age of the child. The aim of this study is to determine whether the nature of the words, the description used by children and as the quantity of new detail provided in describing the alleged perpetrator are moderate by the child’s age and the type of questions posed by authorities (invitation or directive). A total of 75 police investigations interviewing children (50 girls and 25 boys) aged from 3 to 12-years-old (M = 7,21; É.T. = 2,75) were analyzed when age was divided into 3 groups (3 to 5-years-old, 6 to 8-years-old and 9 to 12-years-old). A one factor one-way ANOVA analysis and follow-up post-hoc test revealed significant differences between the three groups across all categories. Indeed, children aged from 9 to 12-years-old provide significantly more details than those aged from 3 to 5 years-old. A content analysis of children’s verbatim shows that the accuracy of the description of the suspect improves as a function of the age of children. Finally, the study’s results do not demonstrate an interaction effect of the type of question and child age on the nature of words chosen by the children. However, a main effect of the question type is obtained for the pronouns/noun category. Also, a main effect of child age groups are identified in almost all categories. This is the first study to look closely at content revealed by children, which will inform to adjust to children’s varying developmental capacities.
guide NICHD investigative interview NICHD protocol sexual abuse child