Repetition of contaminating question types when children and youths with intellectual disabilities are interviewed.
Repeating suggestive questions makes a large share of youths with ID flip their answers, wrecking statement reliability.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team watched 30 taped police interviews of youths with intellectual disabilities. Each youth faced the same focused or leading questions two or three times.
They counted how many kids swapped answers when the question came back around.
What they found
Four out of ten youths flipped to a new answer the second or third time. Most swaps moved from a correct detail to a wrong one.
The changes happened only after suggestive or yes/no probes, not after open questions.
How this fits with other research
McMillan et al. (1999) saw the same risk in adults without ID. Their study showed that structured, open interviews gave facts parents could later confirm, while repeated yes/no probes created shaky recall.
Ali et al. (2016) found that many UK prisoners with ID are stuck on remand partly because their police statements look unreliable. A-C et al. now show one reason why: the questions were asked over and over.
Casey et al. (2009) review how brain differences in ID can worsen under stress. Looping, pushy questions add that stress, so the memory failures seen here line up with biology.
Why it matters
If you interview a client about an incident—abuse, bullying, a meltdown—ask once, then rephrase with an open prompt like "Tell me more." Avoid yes/no or leading repeats. One clean open pass keeps testimony solid and protects the person’s credibility in court, school hearings, or treatment planning.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: The present study examined the effects of repeating questions in interviews investigating the possible sexual abuse of children and youths who had a variety of intellectual disabilities. We predicted that the repetition of option-posing and suggestive questions would lead the suspected victims to change their responses, making it difficult to understand what actually happened. Inconsistency can be a key factor when assessing the reliability of witnesses. MATERIALS: Case files and transcripts of investigative interviews with 33 children and youths who had a variety of intellectual disabilities were obtained from prosecutors in Sweden. The interviews involved 25 females and 9 males whose chronological ages were between 5.4 and 23.7 years when interviewed (M = 13.2 years). RESULTS: Six per cent of the questions were repeated at least once. The repetition of focused questions raised doubts about the reports because the interviewees changed their answers 40% of the time. CONCLUSIONS: Regardless of the witnesses' abilities, it is important to obtain reports that are as accurate and complete as possible in investigative interviews. Because this was a field study, we did not know which responses were accurate, but repetitions of potentially contaminating questions frequently led the interviewees to contradict their earlier answers. This means that the interviewers' behaviour diminished the usefulness of the witnesses' testimony.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2009 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2009.01160.x