Getting the story from child witnesses: exploring the application of a story grammar framework

Abstract

Investigative interviews with children about alleged abuse were analysed to determine the degree to which the child's responses adhered to a story grammar framework, and whether the presence of story grammar elements was associated with interviewers’ adherence to best-practice (i.e. open-ended) questioning. The sample included 51 interviews with child witnesses from across Australia. The interviews were administered by a police officer with children (37 girls and 14 boys) aged 3–16 years (M age = 103.82 months, SD = 34.21 months). The interviewers’ questions were categorised as open-ended or specific and the children's responses were classified as a story grammar element, context/background information, or ‘don't know’ responses. The majority of interviewer questions were specific in nature and the majority of children's responses were context/background details. Open-ended questions were more successful in eliciting story grammar from children. Of the story grammar elements, the interviewers’ specific questions usually targeted setting and attempt details. These findings suggest that improvement in the narrative coherence of children's reports of abusive events can potentially be achieved by increasing interviewers’ use of open-ended questions.

Keywords:

• abuse
• investigative
• interviewing
• child witnesses
• language

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge the support of Grant 04/04-05 from the Criminology Research Council. We also wish to thank Dr Carolyn Hughes-Scholes and Ms. Brooke Feltis for their assistance with data coding.