Reliability of EWT regarding children

Ruva and Bryant (2004)

They must be able to understand and respond to questions effectively without being influenced by suggestions or their evidence may be disregarded as child testimonies are clearly more challenged so can increase reliability as research will be required to back claims.

Cotterill (2002)

Younger children tend to miss out more details than adults when asked to freely recall

Otgaar et al (2018)

Under some conditions adults are actually more susceptible than children to suggestion and false memory, in a study adults are more frequent to automatically generate links between items experienced and those in memory.

Bruck and Ceci (1991)

State that preschoolers have been shown to be more suggestible than older children and adults

Knutsson & Allwood (2014)

Although it is widely believed that children have better susceptibility to suggestion children do not necessarily show a heightened susceptibility to suggestion.

Krähenbühl et al (2014)

State that repeated questioning can lower accuracy to due children changing their answers to fit perceived expectations

Burck and Cecil (1999)

Children who are presented with forced questions rarely indicate they do not know suggesting they could be impacting recall

What do studies show about suggestibility?

Children are able to provide accurate repots of experienced events, research shows that children provide more accurate responses to open ended questions than specific questions.

Gee and Pipe (1995)

Studies have shown that children can give accurate reports of experienced events, even under stress when asked to freely recall, Free recall is beneficial immediately after and event to produced a higher accuracy.

Jack et al (2012)

Children are able to recall events months after they have occurred.

Flin et al (1992)

Delay between event and testimony reduces accuracy and reliability, high stress situations can impair children’s ability to recall perpetrators and recall details

How has the law changed to compensate for children

Open ended questions reduce the chance of suggestibility and increase accuracy, law enforcement and legal professionals have increasingly used structured interviews to avoid false memories.

New Jersey Supreme Court (2011)

New guidelines fore handling EWT in court, Including instructions to jurors about potential errors.

What are the flaws in social implications for EWT?

Legal professional owls view children as unreliable, Children’s testimony is often disregarded and undervalued, miscarriages of justice due to unreliable child testimony can have long-term psychological and social consequences.