Question

Imagine that the outcome of an important court case in your community depends on the testimony of a young child. What kind of factors would encourage you to trusts the child’s report, and which ones would you suspicious.

Answer 1

The factors that would lead to trusting a young child's testimony are:

1) Children are able to recall events accurately when asked to recall freely.

2) If the testimony is required after a short delay of the incident, then the child's report would be reliable.

3) Also children provide better testimonies of self experienced incidents.

4) Testimonies could be relied upon when the questions are open ended and not repeated to the child.

The factors that would lead to not trusting a young child's testimony are:

1) When the questions asked are repeated in a highly structured manner.

2) If the testimony is required after a long period of interval (10 weeks) from the incident.

3) If a non-supportive interviewing style is adopted at the court.