Minimizing Miscommunication in

Child Interviews

Due to the sensitive nature of child interviewing,

there may be some disciplines that are

not appropriate for this training.

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Children acquire language in a cultural context.  The meaning of words does not come as quickly as the use of those words when communicating. Some words are less reliable, such as pronouns and prepositions.  Other words are not reliable because the cognitive processes needed to understand the use of these words have not been mastered by the child. This presentation will provide information on children's use of language as preschoolers and as school-aged children.  These concepts will be applied to the process of gathering information from children for court purposes.  By understanding children's abilities to communicate, an interview can be linguistically sensitive to the child's needs and be conducted in a legally sound manner.

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Objectives:

1.  Participants will understand how the developmental issue of being concrete affects information gathering from children.

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2.  Participants will be able to identify small but important words and know how to minimize misinformation.

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3.  Participants will learn to maximize the potential of gathering accurate data from children by using linguistically sensitive interview questions.