Child maltreatment, trauma-related psychopathology, and eyewitness memory in children and adolescents

Memory Accuracy After 20 Years for Interviews About Child Maltreatment

When adults allege childhood victimization, their long-term memory comes under scrutiny. This scrutiny can extend to the adults' memory of childhood interviews. The concerns raise important theoretical and applied issues regarding memory for long-past discussions of child maltreatment and trauma. In this longitudinal study, 104 adults, who as children (ages 3-15 years) were interviewed in child maltreatment investigations (Time 1), were questioned 20 years later (Time 2) about the Time 1 interviews. Verbatim documentation from Time 1 permitted scoring of memory accuracy. A subset of the participants (36%) reported no memory for the Time 1 interviews. Of the 64% who remembered being interviewed at Time 1, those who had been adolescents at Time 1 remembered the forensic interview discussion about abuse incidents better than discussion about general psychological issues. Adult trauma symptoms were associated with more accurate memory for interview content that directly concerned abuse experiences but not for non-abuse-specific information. Findings indicate that the veracity of adults' long-term memory for clinical/forensic conversations about childhood maltreatment depends on age at interview, interview content, and traumatization factors. Implications are discussed.

The Relationship between Suggestibility, Fabrication, Distortion, and Trauma in Suspected Sexually Abused Children

Being a victim of abuse in childhood can lead to the development of trauma-related psychopathology, which could affect the testimony of the child victim. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a factor that can increase both the levels of suggestibility and the production of memory errors, such as confabulations, which can be identified in distortions and fabrications. No studies have analyzed the relationship between suggestibility, fabrications, distortions, and PTSD on samples of children and adolescents suspected of being sexually abused. This study aims to verify in a sample of 221 sexually abused children and adolescents the effect of PTSD, measured by Trauma Symptoms Checklist for Children, in increasing the levels of immediate and delayed suggestibility and the production of fabrications and distortions in immediate and delayed memory tasks, obtained by Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale 2, controlling age and non-verbal intelligence. Our results show that PTSD increases the levels of immediate and delayed suggestibility, but it has no effect on memory recall in immediate recall tasks. Moreover, PTSD leads to a greater number of distorted and fabricated information inserted in delayed memory. Forensic implications of PTSD consequences on memory tasks and suggestibility levels of sexually abused children are discussed.

Suggestibility in neglected children: The influence of intelligence, language, and social skills

We administered the GSS-2, a standardised measure of suggestibility, to 5- to 12-year-old children to ascertain whether neglected children's responses to leading questions distinguish them from those of their non-neglected counterparts. Neglected children (n = 75) were more likely than an age-matched sample of non-neglected children (n = 75) to yield to leading questions, despite no difference in their ability to recall the test stimuli. Subsequent collection of individual difference data from the neglected sample revealed that this effect could not be attributed to intelligence, language ability, problem behaviours, age at onset of neglect, or time spent in out-of-home care. With respect to social skill, however, suggestibility was positively correlated with communicative skill, and marginally positively correlated with assertion and engagement. While on the surface our social skills findings seem counter-intuitive, it is possible that maltreated children with relative strengths in these areas have learned to comply with adults in their environment as a way to protect themselves or even foster belonging. Our data, while preliminary, raise interesting questions about whether targeted interventions could help these children to more actively participate in decisions about their lives.

What Drives False Memories in Psychopathology? A Case for Associative Activation

In clinical and court settings, it is imperative to know whether posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression may make people susceptible to false memories. We conducted a review of the literature on false memory effects in participants with PTSD, a history of trauma, or depression. When emotional associative material was presented to these groups, their levels of false memory were raised relative to those in relevant comparison groups. This difference did not consistently emerge when neutral or nonassociative material was presented. Our conclusion is supported by a quantitative comparison of effect sizes between studies using emotional associative or neutral, nonassociative material. Our review suggests that individuals with PTSD, a history of trauma, or depression are at risk for producing false memories when they are exposed to information that is related to their knowledge base.

Maltreatment increases spontaneous false memories but decreases suggestion-induced false memories in children

We examined the creation of spontaneous and suggestion‐induced false memories in maltreated and non‐maltreated children. Maltreated and non‐maltreated children were involved in a Deese–Roediger–McDermott false memory paradigm where they studied and remembered negative and neutral word lists. Suggestion‐induced false memories were created using a misinformation procedure during which both maltreated and non‐maltreated children viewed a negative video (i.e., bank robbery) and later received suggestive misinformation concerning the event. Our results showed that maltreated children had higher levels of spontaneous negative false memories but lower levels of suggestion‐induced false memories as compared to non‐maltreated children. Collectively, our study demonstrates that maltreatment both increases and decreases susceptibility to memory illusions depending on the type of false memory being induced.