Re: Children's evidence

[<JTabin@xxxxxxx>]

In a message dated 2/24/2000 2:08:51 PM Central Standard Time, 
wraight@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:

> "Validity" is
>  often raised as an issue with children's statements, to a degree that is
>  offensive given my experiences in supervising thirty thousand CPS
>  investigations.  Adults lie with greater frequency in my and my staff's
>  experience.

As I am following this conversation, it does not appear to me that the issue 
is whether or not children lie, but whether they can be more easily 
influenced and lead than adults.  And I believe the initial distinction 
between rapport and a positive connection was intended as matter of degree.  
The thinking, as I understand it, has been that strong rapport can increase 
the likelihood of a child responding as the child believes the adult wants 
the child to respond; thus, theory has it, rapport can distort evidence.  By 
extension, any positive connection has been thought possibly to contaminate 
evidence given by children.  The finding reported suggested that a positive 
connect (which was distinguished from rapport, an even stronger connect) 
improved rather than diminished the quality of children's evidence. 

Good researchers know without a doubt that the desire to please an 
interviewer can color the responses of an interviewee.  That is true with 
adults as with children.  By the same token, a negative reaction to an 
interviewer can influence an interviewee to color responses in other ways.  
Thus, the questioner is a "disturbance in the field" when information is 
obtained through human interaction.

The reported research, as I understood it, undertook to determine what kind 
of relationship between adult interviewer and child interviewee produced the 
least distortion in the quality of the information.  The conclusion was that 
a positive connection (but a connection short of rapport) was the answer.