Talking past each other: Interviewer and child verbal exchanges in forensic interviews

Abstract

We used sequential analysis to examine the relationship between interviewer question types, child responsiveness, and subsequent interviewer prompting in 103 forensic interviews investigating sexual abuse allegations with children (6-16 years old). Broad open-ended prompts were more likely to elicit responses (83%) than nonresponses (17%) from children, but nonresponding was more highly associated with this type of prompt than expected by chance. Closed-ended prompts elicited more responses (96%) than nonresponses (4%) from children, and these prompts were more likely to elicit a response than expected by chance. Interviewers did not consistently engage in "pairing" and generally did not alter their questioning style in response to children's behavior. As expected, more frequent use of pairing was positively associated with open-ended prompting and negatively associated with focused prompting. Similarly, children's responding style remained consistent irrespective of the questions posed to them. Thus, much of the interviews seemed to be composed of interviewers and children talking past one another. Interviewing training and supervision of interviewing practice may benefit by including a focus on the pairing principle.