NCJ Number
246688
Journal
Child Abuse and Neglect Volume: 38 Issue: 2 Dated: February 2014 Pages: 192-201
Date Published
February 2014
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This study evaluated the impact of "comfort drawing" (allowing children to draw during interviews) on the quality of children's eyewitness reports.
Abstract
The children who were given materials for drawing displayed no significant advantages or disadvantages regarding the quality of their reports compared with the children who were not given drawing materials; i.e., comfort drawing did not significantly increase or decrease the amount of information the children recalled, the accuracy of their answers, or the extent to which interviewers needed to prompt the children for answers; however, younger children who were allowed to draw during the interview disclosed they had been touched more often than younger children in the no-drawing condition. This result was not due to an overall tendency to say "yes" to yes-or-no questions. By showing that voluntary drawing did not hinder school-aged children's (ages 5-12) ability in a challenging memory task, this study alleviates concern about the adverse cognitive or distraction effects of this activity during interviews. A total of 219 children, ages 5 to 12 years old, who had participated in an earlier memory study participated in the current study 1 or 2 years later. They experienced a new event and were then asked to describe both the older and new event during phased investigative-style interviews. Interviewers delivered the same prompts to children in the no-drawing and drawing conditions, providing paper and markers only to children in the drawing condition. The children supplied with drawing materials were encouraged by interviewers to draw pictures. 2 tables and 27 references