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Preparing Children for Investigative

Interviews: Rapport-Building, Instruction, and
Evaluation

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DOI: 10.1080/10888691.2010.494463

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Preparing Children for Investigative Interviews: Rapport-Building,

Instruction, and Evaluation
Yee-San Teoha; Michael E. Lambb
a
City University of New York, b University of Cambridge,

Online publication date: 16 July 2010

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Building, Instruction, and Evaluation', Applied Developmental Science, 14: 3, 154 — 163
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 APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE, 14(3), 154–163, 2010
Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1088-8691 print=1532-480X online
DOI: 10.1080/10888691.2010.494463

Preparing Children for Investigative Interviews:

Rapport-Building, Instruction, and Evaluation
Yee-San Teoh
City University of New York

Michael E. Lamb
University of Cambridge

The present study examined (1) the ways investigative interviewers in forensic settings
Downloaded By: [Lamb, Michael] At: 16:16 16 July 2010

prepared children for substantive questioning, and (2) whether the techniques used
and the amount of time spent in the pre-substantive phase were related to children’s
informativeness. Accuracy of the children’s statements was not assessed. The sample
included investigative interviews of a small sample of 75 alleged victims of sexual abuse
in Malaysia, aged 5 to 15 years. Explanations of the conversational rules, purpose of the
interview, and the children’s roles as informants appeared to help the youngest children
to be informative. The results also revealed possible limits to the potential benefits of
rapport-building and suggest that interviewers should monitor the amount of time they
spend preparing children for substantive questioning. Implications for addressing the
limitations of the present research and directions for future research are discussed.

Little is known about the ways in which interviewers
should prepare children for investigative interviews,
despite recommendations that forensic interviewers
should establish rapport before prompting children to
talk about the allegation (e.g., Fisher & Geiselman,
1992; Home Office, 2002; Lamb, Sternberg, & Esplin,
1998; Poole & Lamb, 1998; Yuille, Hunter, Joffe, &
Zaparniuk, 1993). In both analogue and field contexts,
children can be shy or uncomfortable in initial encoun-
ters with unfamiliar adults, whether they are apprehen-
sive about the interviewers, the purpose of the
interviews, or the consequences of reporting certain
Portions of this research were presented at the 2010 Annual
Meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Brooklyn, NY.
This research was supported by the University of Cambridge
Commonwealth Trust PhD Scholarship and Tunku Abdul Rahman
Centenary Award.
The authors gratefully acknowledge the children and interviewers
who were involved in this research.
Address correspondence to Yee-San Teoh, Department of
Psychology, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, 2900
Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11210-2889. E-mail: YTeoh@
brooklyn.cuny.edu
information. There is little evidence, however, concerning
the ways in which interviewers actually prepare children
for substantive questioning, whether the type and num-
ber of preparatory techniques used are related to the
quality of children’s accounts, and whether the use and
effects of the pre-substantive phase vary according to
individual differences among children. Thus, the overall
goal of the present study was to explore the types of
techniques investigative interviewers used in preparing
children for investigative interviews, and whether these
preparatory techniques were related to the children’s ages
and the quality of the information they provided.
The pre-substantive phase of investigative interviews
can help foster spontaneous=voluntary, informative,
and accurate reporting (Saywitz & Goodman, 1996;
Sternberg et al., 1997), because it affords interviewers
opportunities to establish rapport with children, explain
the purpose of the interview, the importance of truth-
telling and rules of communication, and help children
practice talking about personally experienced events.
The pre-substantive phase also allows interviewers
to assess children’s verbal and cognitive skills before
investigating substantive issues in developmentally
 PREPARING CHILDREN FOR INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEWS
appropriate ways (Poole & Lamb, 1998). In the
pre-substantive portion of the NICHD Investigative
Interview Protocol, for example, children are instructed
to tell the truth, to report only personally experienced
events and to admit lack of knowledge or lack of under-
standing, and to correct the interviewer when necessary
(Orbach et al., 2000; Lamb, Hershkowitz, Orbach, &
Esplin, 2008; Sternberg, Lamb, Orbach, Esplin, &
Mitchell, 2001).
RAPPORT-BUILDING
When approached by unfamiliar adults or authority
figures, some children may be reluctant to describe per-
sonally experienced events that are intimate or embar-
rassing (e.g., Saywitz, Goodman, Nicholas, & Moan,
1991). Rapport-building can be crucial in preparing chil-
dren, particularly reluctant disclosers, by alleviating
their discomfort (e.g., Siegman & Reynolds, 1983).
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Getting to know children by questioning them about
their family or friends, for instance, may put children
at ease. Children who are apprehensive of investigative
interviewers because of their status as authority figures
may provide inaccurate information and be more
suggestible (e.g., Tobey & Goodman, 1992). Inter-
viewers can reduce this apprehension and thus prevent
suggestibility and inaccuracy by familiarizing themselves
with the children and behaving in a warm and support-
ive manner (e.g., Goodman, Bottoms, Schwartz-
Kenney, & Rudy, 1991; Hershkowitz, Orbach, Lamb,
Sternberg, & Horowitz, 2006). When rapport-building
is effective, children who seem reluctant and uncom-
municative at the beginning of the interview may open
up later (Wood, McClure, & Birch, 1996).
There are several factors that might influence children’s
motivation to disclose, because they are concerned about
the consequences of disclosure. The present field research
was conducted in Malaysia, where forensic interviews
with ethnic Malay children were examined. Among the
Malays, Islam constitutes a key element in ethnic identity.
Furthermore, the Malays in Malaysia appear to have a
strong sense of community spirit, which is especially evi-
dent in the villages or ‘‘kampongs’’ scattered around the
major cities. Malay children’s memories and perceptions
of sexual abuse or any other forms of maltreatment might
be significantly influenced by the religious and community
conventions that discourage the exposure of wrongdoings
by family or community (particularly male) members.
These factors can prevent Malay children from being
informative, as they might be under pressure to withhold
certain types of information. Thus, prior to questioning
children about substantive issues, investigative inter-
viewers have the opportunity to explain the purpose of
the interview, reassure children that they were not in
155
any way responsible for the wrongdoings of the per-
petrator, and, therefore, should not be concerned about
the consequences of disclosure.
INSTRUCTION
Within the forensic interview, interviewers may need to
teach specific conversational rules to children to ensure
that they understand their role. The pre-substantive
phase of the interview allows interviewers to explain
the purpose and ground rules, thereby helping children
to be more informative and resistant to suggestion when
questioned about alleged incidents in the substantive
phase of the interview. Children can be cooperative con-
versational partners. They may not challenge the credi-
bility of adult questioners (Ackerman, 1983), as they
may perceive adults as being reliable and competent
sources of information (Garvey, 1984). Moreover, when
children are confused by interviewers’ statements, they
often try to infer desirable responses rather than admit
their lack of understanding (Garvey, 1984; Hughes &
Grieve, 1980). As a result, the quality of children’s
reports can be compromised.
In an effort to improve the quality of children’s
reports, researchers have examined the use of several
forensically relevant conversational rules, including
encouraging ‘‘I don’t know’’ responses (Moston, 1990;
Mulder & Vrij, 1996; Waterman, Blades, & Spencer,
2001), providing warnings about false suggestions (e.g.,
‘‘I may trick you,’’ Warren, Hulse-Trotter, & Tubbs,
1991), providing explanations concerning the inter-
viewer’s lack of knowledge (e.g., Dent, 1991; Mulder &
Vrij, 1996), and encouraging children to ask for clarifi-
cation (e.g., Saywitz, Snyder, & Nathanson, 1999).
Teaching children to say ‘‘I don’t know’’ or ‘‘I don’t
understand,’’ when they do not know or do not under-
stand may reduce their tendency to assume that every
question must be answered (Hughes & Grieve, 1980;
Poole & White, 1995; Pratt, 1990), even when the ques-
tions were not understood. Researchers have found that
children who used do-not-know responses more fre-
quently provided proportionally more accurate (and less
inaccurate) information when questioned about staged
events (Nesbitt & Markham, 1999; Quas et al., 1999;
Schaaf, Alexander, & Goodman, 2008). Before approach-
ing substantive topics, therefore, interviewers may be able
to help children be more competent informants by
explicitly communicating their roles and expectations.
EVALUATION
The importance of truth-telling can also be addressed in
the pre-substantive phase. By 4 to 5 years of age, most
 156 TEOH AND LAMB
children understand that lying leads to punishment
(Bussey, 1992; Lyon & Saywitz, 1999; Peterson, Peter-
son, & Seeto, 1983). Talwar and her colleagues have
found that promising to tell the truth increases honesty
(Talwar et al., 2002; 2004), and that the understanding
of truth and lies is related to honesty among children
who swear to tell the truth (Talwar et al., 2004). The
accuracy of children’s reports may not be related to their
understanding of the meaning and morality of lying,
however (Feben, 1985; Goodman, Aman, & Hirschman,
1987; London & Nunez, 2002; Pipe & Wilson, 1994; Tal-
war et al., 2002); but, in a recent study by Lyon and
Dorado (2008), a child-friendly version of the oath
appeared to increase true disclosures (without increasing
false disclosures) by maltreated children. Even when the
oath was combined with suggestive questions and used
with children who appeared to be incompetent oath-
takers, it had no negative effects on accuracy. Thus,
considering the potential benefits of inducing children
to tell the truth, oath-taking in the pre-substantive phase
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can be another means of enhancing the reliability of
children’s accounts.
The pre-substantive phase can also be used to evalu-
ate children’s readiness to talk about their experiences.
Reluctant or non-disclosers can be identified at this early
stage of the interview, allowing interviewers to decide
whether or not they should proceed to the substantive
phase. In a study comparing interviews with non-
disclosing and disclosing children in Israel, Hershkowitz
and colleagues (2006) found that, in both the rapport-
building and episodic memory training portions of
the interview, non-disclosing children provided fewer
informative and more uninformative responses than
disclosing children. Hershkowitz et al. suggested that
children’s reluctance to be informative early in the inter-
view could influence interviewers’ behavior in the substan-
tive phase, and argued that interviewers may need to
spend more time and employ alternate rapport-building
techniques to prepare reluctant- or non-disclosers.
DURATION OF THE PRE-SUBSTANTIVE
PHASE
Interviewers should avoid spending too much time
building rapport with reluctant disclosers, however,
because lengthy rapport-building phases can be
counter-productive (Davies, Westcott, & Horan, 2000).
Davies et al. found that certain types of abuse-relevant
information were more likely to be elicited when
rapport-building was shorter (less than 8 min). Longer
pre-substantive discussions may be tiring, particularly
for younger children, thus reducing their attention to
questions about substantive topics and reducing the
amount of time available (Davies et al., 2000; Roberts,
Lamb, & Sternberg, 2004). Hershkowitz et al. (2006)
suggested that some children may need to be interviewed
on another occasion and that investigators may need to
consider ending interviews before addressing substantive
issues in order to formulate alternative approaches.
THE PRESENT STUDY
When rapport-building, instruction, and training are
done efficiently in clear and non-suggestive ways, the
effects of children’s developmental limitations in mem-
ory, conversational skills, suggestibility, and motivation
on their performance in the substantive phase can be
reduced significantly. Thus, we examined forensic inter-
views with alleged victims of child sexual abuse in
Malaysia and measured the frequency with which inter-
viewers (a) built rapport (e.g., talking about the child’s
family or school), (b) assessed children’s cognitive skills
and their understanding of truth-telling, and (c)
informed children about the ground rules and expecta-
tions of the investigative interview; and (d) asked
whether the techniques used depended on the children’s
ages. Specifically, we predicted that interviewers would
make greater effort to build rapport than to assess or
instruct children, and would more often attempt to build
rapport with younger than older children.
Considering the potential benefits of rapport-
building, cognitive and socio-cognitive testing, and
instruction by interviewers, we also studied the possible
relations between these types of prompts and children’s
informativeness in the substantive phase. The current
study was conducted in the field, so accuracy could
not be assessed, and thus the quality of children’s
reports was measured by their informativeness. In line
with previous findings, we expected a positive relation
between the amount of rapport-building and instru-
ction (e.g., explanation of ‘‘ground rules’’) in the pre-
substantive phase and children’s informativeness in the
substantive phase. In the Malaysian police interviews
with children, much of the ‘‘evaluation’’ portion of the
pre-substantive phase is devoted to assessing children’s
understanding of the distinction between truth-telling
and lying by way of a short fictitious story, and their
understanding of the religious morality of lying.
Another common practice involves evaluating children’s
ability to tell the time and date. There is some evidence
that the accuracy of children’s reports is not related to
their understanding of the meaning and morality of
lying (Goodman et al., 1987; London & Nunez, 2002;
Pipe & Wilson, 1994; Talwar et al., 2002). What remains
unclear is the extent to which the evaluation of chil-
dren’s cognitive skills and their understanding of
truth-telling relate to the quality of information they
provide.
 PREPARING CHILDREN FOR INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEWS
Because lengthy rapport-building phases can be
counter-productive (Davies et al., 2000), we also exam-
ined whether the overall length of interviewers’ interven-
tions in the pre-substantive phase correlated with
children’s informativeness in the substantive phase.
Previous studies have typically used temporal duration
as a measure of the length of the pre-substantive phase
(e.g., Davies et al., 2000; Sternberg et al., 1997), but
the length of the pre-substantive phase can also be mea-
sured by the number of words spoken by the inter-
viewer. Children may be cognitively or emotionally
overwhelmed by the sheer number of questions and
instructions posed by interviewers, rather than the tem-
poral duration of the pre-substantive phase. Thus, in the
present study, the total number of words interviewers
addressed to children, rather than the temporal duration
was used to measure of the length of the pre-substantive
phase. We expected that more extensive pre-substantive
phases would be associated with proportionally fewer
informative responses in the substantive phase.
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METHOD
Participants
The sample included investigative interviews of 75 ethnic
Malay children (67 girls and 8 boys), ranging from 5 to
15 years of age (M ¼ 10.65, SD ¼ 3.47). These interviews
were conducted by British- and locally-trained police
officers at the Child Protection Unit in Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia. Finalized cases that yielded explicit allega-
tions of fondling or penetrating sexual abuse were
included in the study. Cases were finalized for various
reasons, but most of the cases in the current sample were
finalized following conviction of the offender. All the
children spoke Malay as their first language, with only
a few occasionally using English words in their narra-
tives. None of the children in the current sample were
known to have a mental or physical disability.
Twenty-eight (37%) of the children reported a single
incident, forty-four (59%) reported two or more inci-
dents, and three (4%) did not specify the frequency of
incident. All the alleged perpetrators were male and
were of Malay or Malay-Indian ethnicity. In twenty-
seven (36%) of the cases, the alleged perpetrator was
a family member, thirty-six (48%) were familiar but
unrelated individuals, eleven (15%) were unfamiliar to
the alleged victims, and one (1%) was not specified.
Familial perpetrators included biological family mem-
bers, relatives, and step-relatives because polygamy
and co-residence with step relatives are common prac-
tices in the Malay community in Malaysia. Nine (12%)
of the children alleged that they were touched over their
clothes, seventeen (23%) reported touching under their
157
clothes, and forty-nine (65%) described oral, anal, or
vaginal penetration.
The interviews were conducted by 15 female and 3
male interviewers; 81% of the investigative interviews
were conducted by interviewers of Malay ethnicity,
and 16% and 3% were conducted by interviewers of
Indian and Chinese ethnicities respectively. The Malay
and Indian investigative interviewers were both male
and female, whereas the Chinese interviewers were
female. All the interviewers were proficient in the Malay
language and thus every interview was conducted in
Malay. Because only a small number of interviewers
were of a different ethnicity and their Malay language
proficiency was no different from that of the native
speakers, interviewer ethnic differences were not
expected and, thus, not considered in the analyses. The
interviewers and alleged victims were not always of the
same gender and ethnicity.
The Investigative Interview Procedure
Although the CPU investigative interviewers had been
trained to follow a basic guideline for interviewing child
witnesses, the interviewers did not bring written guide-
lines into the interviewing room. Instead, the inter-
viewers brought with them details of the police reports
in question. Therefore, the protocol described here is
based both on a report provided by one of the CPU
investigative interviewers and on patterns observed in
the 75 interviews transcribed. Questions were occasion-
ally asked in a different sequence or even omitted and
the type and complexity of the interviewers’ questions
varied. The CPU interviewers’ techniques did not vary
systematically depending on the child’s age or gender.
Police officers at the CPU were obliged to wear civilian
clothes in order to appear less intimidating to children.
Investigative interviews at the CPU generally lasted for
20 to 25 min. Breaks were never taken although the
interviewees were allowed to request breaks.
In the introductory phase, the interviewers asked the
children to state their full names and nicknames, and
one of the nicknames was used to address the children
thereafter. The interviewers then introduced themselves,
explained the role of the Child Protection Unit, intro-
duced the children to the video-recording equipment,
clarified the children’s tasks (the need to describe the
events truthfully and in detail), and explained the ground
rules and expectations (i.e., that the children can and
should say ‘‘I don’t remember,’’ ‘‘I don’t know,’’ ‘‘I don’t
understand,’’ or correct the interviewers when appropri-
ate). The interviewers also assessed the children’s under-
standing of the distinction between truth-telling and lying
by way of a short fictitious story and their understanding
of the religious morality of lying before evaluating their
ability to tell the time and date. Children were also
 158 TEOH AND LAMB
prompted to talk about their personal lives (e.g., their
families and friends). In the transitional phase between
the pre-substantive and substantive parts of the inter-
view, a series of prompts were used to identify the target
event(s) under investigation non-suggestively by, for
example, making reference to a recent hospital visit or
police report, previous disclosure, or asking the children
if they knew the purpose of the investigative interviews.
Following disclosure of the allegations, the free-recall
phase began with the main invitation (‘‘Tell me every-
thing that happened from the very beginning to the
end, the last incident’’). Follow-up open-ended prompts
or facilitators were used (e.g., ‘‘Then what happened?’’),
as were cued invitations (‘‘You mentioned a person=
object=action. Tell me everything about that’’). Inter-
viewers prompted the children to indicate whether the
incidents occurred one time or more than one time and
proceeded to obtain incident-specific information. Dur-
ing substantive questioning, interviewers also used direc-
tive questions (focused questions addressing details
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previously mentioned by the child) or option-posing
questions (mostly yes=no questions referencing new
details that the child failed to address previously).
Suggestive utterances that communicated to the child
what response is expected (‘‘At that time he was laying
on top of you, wasn’t he?’’) were strongly discouraged
in all phases of the interviews. Interviewers ended the
interview by checking if the children had any questions
or by reverting to a neutral topic.
Coding
Transcripts for the 75 cases in this study were coded to
evaluate the quantity and quality of both the inter-
viewers’ techniques and the information disclosed by
the child witnesses. All translations reported here were
made by the first author.
Quality of Information Reported by the Child
Informative responses provided new forensically rel-
evant information. Forensically relevant information
included allegation-related details pertaining to the indi-
vidual(s), action(s), place(s), object(s), time, emotion(s),
sensation(s), and thought(s) associated with the alleged
incident(s). Responses that were not informative did
not include any forensically relevant information, con-
tained repeated information, or were questions to the
interviewers. Responses that included both informative
and uninformative elements were coded as informative.
Interviewer Prompts
Interviewers’ utterances were coded quantitatively by
measuring the total number of words per interviewer
utterance. The length of the pre-substantive phase was
computed using the total number of words spoken by
the interviewers during the phase.
Interviewer prompts in the pre-substantive phase
were defined by content, thus prompts that did not fit
into any of the content categories below were not coded.
Several prompts could be coded within a single conver-
sational turn. Repeated prompts were included. The
content of pre-substantive prompts was coded using
the following categories.
1. Rapport-building. The interviewer asked ques-
tions or made comments about the child’s per-
sonal life, such as family, school, and hobbies.
2. Evaluation. The interviewer asked questions
assessing the child’s ability. For example, the
interviewer asked the child to tell the date and
time or asked whether the child understood the
difference between a truth and a lie.
3. Instruction and clarification. The interviewer
informed the child about the purpose of the inter-
view, provided details about the interviewer and
the interview procedure, and clarified communi-
cation rules and expectations.
Inter-Rater Reliability
A quarter (25%) of the transcripts were then indepen-
dently coded by the principal investigator and a research
assistant (who was blind to the study’s hypotheses) to
ensure that they remained equivalently reliable. The
remaining cases were coded by the principal investi-
gator. Inter-rater agreement was assessed using Cohen’s
kappa. Agreement regarding the identification and
classification of informative responses were .85 and
.89, respectively. Agreement regarding the length of
the interviewers’ utterances was .99 for the
pre-substantive phase. For the identification and classi-
fication of pre-substantive prompts, coefficients of
agreement were .96 and .98, respectively.
RESULTS
Preliminary analyses of variances (ANOVAs) did not
reveal significant effects of severity of abuse, relation-
ship with the alleged perpetrator, interviewer age and
gender and child gender on the numbers of interviewer
prompts (rapport-building, instruction, evaluation) and
the proportion of children’s informative responses in
the substantive phase of the interview. These factors
were thus excluded in subsequent analyses.
The main analyses examined differences in the types
and length of pre-substantive interviewer prompts, and
associations between interviewers’ prompts in the
 PREPARING CHILDREN FOR INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEWS
pre-substantive phase and the informativeness of chil-
dren’s responses in the substantive phase of the inter-
view. The proportions of all substantive responses that
were informative were computed.
Type and Length of Pre-Substantive Prompts
A mixed-design ANOVA was carried out to examine
within-subject differences in the types of interviewers’
pre-substantive prompts and between-subjects age
group differences. Follow-up analyses were conducted
to examine specific differences between variables. Sig-
nificance was measured using Bonferroni-adjusted p
values, and Scheffé post-hoc tests were included when
relevant. We were interested in the relative frequency
of the use of different types of prompts, so proportions
of each type of pre-substantive prompt were computed
out of the total number of pre-substantive prompts
and are expressed in percentages. Table 1 presents the
means and standard deviations of the pre-substantive
Downloaded By: [Lamb, Michael] At: 16:16 16 July 2010
prompts according to age group.
A mixed-design 3 (Type of pre-substantive prompt:
Rapport-building, evaluation, instruction)
3 (Age
group: five to seven years, eight to twelve years, thirteen
to fifteen years) ANOVA revealed significant main
effects for type of pre-substantive prompt, F(2,71) ¼
250.02, p < .001, partial g2 ¼ .88; and age group,
F(2,72) ¼ 5.03, p < .05, partial g2 ¼ .12. The Prompt

Age group interaction was not significant.
In general, the interviewers used proportionally more
rapport-building (M ¼ 41.54, SD ¼ 19.10) than instruc-
tive prompts (M ¼ 34.47, SD ¼ 16.62), followed by
evaluation prompts (M ¼ 23.99, SD ¼ 14.43). Although
the Prompt
Age group interaction was not significant,
a significant main effect of age group suggested that
there might be age differences in specific types of
pre-substantive prompts. One-way ANOVAs showed
significant age differences in the proportions of
rapport-building and instructive prompts that the
interviewers used (Fs(2,74) ¼ 3.28, 4.69, respectively;
TABLE 1
Relative Frequencies (Expressed in Percentages) and Overall
Length of Pre-substantive Prompts According to Age Group
Age Groups
5–7 Years 8–12 Years 13–15 Years
(n ¼ 20) (n ¼ 24) (n ¼ 31)
Interviewers’ Prompts M SD M SD M SD
Rapport-building 50.14 22.05 40.98 16.37 36.44 17.61
Evaluation 24.02 15.47 24.17 13.95 23.82 14.59
Instruction 25.84 15.38 34.85 16.76 39.74 15.41
Total number of 442.45 175.08 396.58 196.76 285.06 116.46
words spoken
159
p < .05, partial g2s ¼ .08, .12, respectively). Specifically,
interviewers used proportionally more rapport-building
prompts with the five- to seven-year-olds than with the
thirteen- to fifteen-year-olds (Scheffé p < .06). In con-
trast, they used proportionally more instructive prompts
with the thirteen- to fifteen-year-olds than with the five-
to seven-year-olds (Scheffé p < .05).
The number of words spoken by the interviewers in
the pre-substantive phase also varied depending on the
children’s ages, F(2,72) ¼ 6.54, p < .01, partial g2 ¼ .15.
The interviewers spoke more words to five- to seven-
and eight- to twelve-year-olds than to thirteen- to
fifteen-year-olds (Scheffé p < .05).
Interviewers’ Prompts in the Pre-Substantive Phase
and Children’s Responses in the Substantive Phase
Partial Pearson product-moment correlations control-
ling for age were used to examine the relationships
between interviewers’ prompts (type and length) in the
pre-substantive phase and children’s informativeness in
the substantive phase.
When age was controlled, the correlations revealed
that the type and overall length of the interviewers’
pre-substantive prompts were not significantly related
to the proportion of children’s informative responses
in the substantive phase. This result was unexpected
and thus explored further. Considering that child
age was significantly related to the type and overall
length of the interviewers’ pre-substantive prompts,
correlations for individual age groups were examined.
Table 2 presents the relationships between the inter-
viewers’ prompts in the pre-substantive phase and chil-
dren’s responses in the substantive phase for each age
group. For the youngest children (5- to 7-year-olds), there
were moderate negative correlations between (i) the
proportion of rapport-building prompts (M ¼ 50.14,
SD ¼ 22.05) and (ii) the total number of words
spoken by the interviewers (M ¼ 442.45, SD ¼ 175.08)
in the pre-substantive phase of the interview, and the
TABLE 2
Correlations Between Interviewers’ Prompts in the Pre-Substantive
Phase and Children’s Informativeness in the Substantive Phase
Proportion of Informative
Responses in the Substantive Phase
Interviewers’ Pre-Substantive 5–7 Years 8–12 Years 13–15 Years
Prompts (n ¼ 20) (n ¼ 24) (n ¼ 31)
Rapport-building .49 .10 .11
Evaluation .04 .25 .10
Instruction .59 .01 .01
Total number of words .45 .25 .26
Note:  p < .05. 
p < .01.
 160 TEOH AND LAMB
proportion of informative responses given by the children
in the substantive phase (M ¼ .40, SD ¼ .48). In contrast,
the proportion of instructive prompts in the pre-
substantive phase (M ¼ 25.84, SD ¼ 15.38) was positively
related to the proportion of informative responses in the
substantive phase (M ¼ .40, SD ¼ .48). For the eight- to
twelve- and thirteen- to fifteen-year-olds, there were no
significant correlations between interviewers’ prompts in
the pre-substantive phase and the children’s responses
in the substantive phase.
DISCUSSION
The overall goals of the current study were to explore
the types of techniques investigative interviewers in
Malaysia used in preparing children for investigative
interviews, and determine whether these techniques
were related to the children’s ages and informativeness.
We examined the frequency with which interviewers
Downloaded By: [Lamb, Michael] At: 16:16 16 July 2010
(a) built rapport (e.g., talking about the child’s family
or school), (b) assessed children’s cognitive skills and
understanding of truth-telling, (c) informed children
about the ground rules and expectations of the investi-
gative interview; and (d) whether the techniques used
varied depending on the children’s ages. As predicted,
the interviewers in this study used rapport-building
prompts more frequently than other types of pre-
substantive prompts, particularly with the youngest
children. They also addressed more words to the young-
est than to the oldest children in the pre-substantive
phase. The interviewers in this study may have spent
more time building rapport and preparing the youngest
children for substantive questioning because they pre-
sumed that younger children would be more reluctant
or poorer informants than older children. On the other
hand, it may have been the children’s apparent lack of
motivation to talk in the pre-substantive phase that
led interviewers to make more efforts to build rapport
with them.
Instructive prompts that informed children about the
purpose of the interviews, provided details about the
interviewers and the interview procedure, and clarified
communication rules and expectations were more fre-
quently used with the oldest children. The interviewers
may have directed more instructive prompts to the
oldest children because they assumed that the younger
children would not understand the meaning of conver-
sational rules, the purpose of the interviews, or what
the interviewers expected from them. If the interviewers
did have such preconceptions, they risked underestimat-
ing younger children who are not only capable of under-
standing simple instructions such as saying ‘‘I don’t
know’’ when relevant, but would probably benefit more
from learning about the conversational rules and the
purpose of the interview than older children. Previous
research has shown that children as young as 5 years
who used do-not-know responses more frequently pro-
vided proportionally more accurate (and less inaccurate)
information (Schaaf et al., 2008). Beuscher and Roebers
(2005) found that older children were more likely than
younger children to give do-not-know responses when
asked unanswerable questions, after being warned about
such questions. The researchers suggested that older
children may have been more comfortable with the
social demands of formal interviews. Ideally, therefore,
interviewers should spend at least as much time with
younger as with older children explaining the ‘‘ground
rules’’ so that younger children are both aware of and
comfortable with the social demands of investigative
interviews.
Considering the potential benefits of rapport-
building, cognitive and socio-cognitive testing, and
instruction by interviewers, we also studied the possible
relations between these types of pre-substantive prompts
and children’s informativeness in the substantive phase.
Informative responses were defined as responses that
provided new forensically relevant (i.e., substantive)
information. In line with previous findings, we expected
a positive relation between the amount of rapport-
building and instruction (e.g., explanation of ‘‘ground
rules’’) in the pre-substantive phase and children’s infor-
mativeness in the substantive phase. When child age was
controlled in the correlation analyses, the different
types of pre-substantive prompts and length of the
pre-substantive phases were not related to children’s
informativeness in the substantive phase. Interestingly,
however, pre-substantive techniques were significantly
related to the youngest children’s informativeness. Sur-
prisingly, the more frequently the interviewers used
rapport-building prompts and the longer they spoke
in the pre-substantive phase, the less informative
the youngest children were in the substantive phase.
We would expect rapport-building to help facilitate the
youngest children’s reports. In the present study, the
children were frequently uninformative because they
repeated a previous response or digressed from the sub-
stantive topic, so they were nonetheless responsive.
Rapport-building might, therefore, be one of the factors
that facilitate responsive behavior, but is less likely to
help elicit new substantive information.
There are several reasons why too much rapport-
building might be counter-productive. First, when
interviewers spend too much time building rapport,
younger children may become tired, and eventually
become inattentive to questions about the substantive
topic (Roberts et al., 2004), particularly when rapport-
building prompts require children to respond in more
detail than other types of prompts. This negative effect
can be further exacerbated when interviewers repeat
 PREPARING CHILDREN FOR INVESTIGATIVE INTERVIEWS
rapport-building questions by, for instance, asking
children the same question about their hobbies more
than once. Repeated questioning in the pre-substantive
phase may confuse children about what information
interviewers expect from them, and this uncertainty
may have continued into the substantive phase.
Secondly, the interviewers might have overestimated
the need to build rapport with the youngest children,
especially those who did not need extensive rapport-
building. On the other hand, some interviewers may
have correctly identified reluctant children, but spent
too much time building rapport. Interviewers might
benefit, therefore, from explicit guidelines on how to
identify reluctant and non-reluctant disclosers as well
as recommendations on how much time they should
spend building rapport with these different groups of
children.
The benefits of rapport-building can also vary
according to the type of questions interviewers use while
asking children about personal topics. Previous studies
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have shown that open-ended rapport-building enhances
the accuracy of reports about experienced events
(Roberts et al., 2004; Sternberg et al., 1997), and
researchers have proposed that open-ended questioning
helps construct a socially-supportive context in which
children are empowered to resist false descriptions by
interviewers and to rely instead on their own memories.
In addition, the open-ended style is highly dependent on
information that children have already provided (e.g.,
‘‘Tell me more about [something the child mentioned]’’)
and so may shift the balance of power so that children
feel in control and know what happened better than
interviewers do. Roberts et al. (2004) found that the
open-ended style of rapport-building appeared to benefit
even very young children. Because children under 6
years of age tend to provide less detailed accounts of
experienced events (Lamb, Sternberg, & Esplin, 2000;
Lamb et al., 2003; Sternberg, Lamb, Davies & Westcott,
2001), Sternberg et al.’s (1997) and Roberts et al.’s
(2004) findings suggest that rapport-building using
open-ended questions may be especially useful when
interviewing young children. It is likely that, in the
present study, the interviewers frequently built rapport
using close-ended questions which, among other factors,
restricted children’s free recall. Furthermore, the lack of
practice using recall prompts in the pre-substantive
phase may have hampered the children’s efforts to
respond to open-ended or directive questions in the sub-
stantive phase. The pre-substantive phase is a significant
platform on which interviewers’ assumptions about
developmental differences in memory and language are
not necessarily met. For instance, some interviewers
who tend to use focused prompts very early on in the
interview with younger children might be alerted to
the fact that some younger children can be spontaneous
161
and responsive, so interviewers should at least try
using open-ended prompts before resorting to focused
questions.
Consistent with previous findings, interviewers’
efforts to explain ground rules and the purpose of the
interview appeared to improve the quality of children’s
reports. The more frequently interviewers addressed
the youngest children with instructive prompts during
the presubstantive phase, the more likely these children
were to provide informative responses in the substantive
phase. Teaching children conversational rules by
encouraging ‘‘I don’t know’’ responses (Mosten, 1990;
Mulder & Vrij, 1996; Waterman et al., 2001), providing
explanations concerning the interviewer’s lack of knowl-
edge and potential to make mistakes (e.g., Dent, 1991;
Mulder & Vrij, 1996), and encouraging children to ask
for clarification (e.g., Saywitz et al., 1999) can facilitate
accurate recall. If children fail to appreciate that inter-
viewers have little, if any, knowledge of alleged events
or attribute superior knowledge to adult interviewers
(e.g., Ceci, Ross, & Toglia, 1987), they may refrain from
reporting all they know. In addition, if children infer
that interviewers would prefer particular responses, they
may compromise their accounts rather than communi-
cate their actual experiences in order to appear more
cooperative (Ceci & Bruck, 1993; 1995). The results
reported here suggest that, not only might children
below the age of 7 understand conversational rules
and their role as informants, but they may also be cap-
able of following those rules. This emphasizes the need
for interviewers to use the pre-substantive phase to edu-
cate and empower children on how best they can be
informants before attempting to elicit information about
the allegation.
Pre-substantive prompts assessing children’s cogni-
tive functioning or understanding of the meaning
and morality of truth-telling were not associated with
proportionally more informative responses about sub-
stantive issues. Because evaluation prompts were predo-
minantly questions about truth-telling, it is likely that
children’s understanding of the meaning of truth-telling
and their promises to tell the truth are more likely to be
associated with the accuracy (e.g., Lyon & Dorado,
2008) rather than the informativeness of their reports.
On the other hand, children who intended to hide the
truth to protect a loved one, for example, might be more
inclined to withhold information than provide false
information. Further research is clearly needed to evalu-
ate the relative effects of children’s understanding of
truth and the accuracy and informativeness of their
reports. Perhaps children’s competency to take the oath
rather than their understanding of truth-telling is more
indicative of their motivation or tendency to provide
accurate information. Because field researchers are
usually unable to evaluate the accuracy of children’s
 162 TEOH AND LAMB
testimonies, an analogue research design is needed to
compare the accuracy of reports by children who do
or do not understand the meaning of truth and those
who understand and promise to tell the truth.
In line with previous findings, we also expected the
length of the pre-substantive phase to correlate with
children’s informativeness in the substantive phase.
Supporting this hypothesis, the longer the interviewers
spoke to the youngest children in the pre-substantive
phase, the less informative these children were when ques-
tioned about the allegations. As suggested by previous
researchers, interviewers who spend more time building
rapport have less time to question children about the alle-
gation (Davies et al., 2000), while longer rapport-building
or pre-substantive phases may be cognitively exhausting
particularly for younger children, reducing their attention
to questions about the substantive topic (Roberts et al.
2004). Davies et al. (2000) found that certain types of
abuse-relevant information were more likely to be elicited
when rapport-building was shorter (less than 8 min). The
Downloaded By: [Lamb, Michael] At: 16:16 16 July 2010
optimal pre-substantive duration was not determined in
the present study, so it would be interesting to investigate
whether interviewers should direct a minimum and
maximum number of rapport-building, instructive, and
evaluation prompts before the substantive issues are
broached. Nonetheless, some children may need to be
interviewed on another occasion, so that investigators
need to consider ending interviews without addressing
substantive issues (Hershkowitz et al., 2006).
Definitive conclusions about the possible effects of
interviewers’ efforts to build rapport cannot be drawn,
however, until we determine the level of support (verbal
and non-verbal) they show in the pre-substantive phase.
It is possible, for example, that the positive effects of
rapport-building were confounded by the interviewers’
unsupportive behaviors or statements. Research has
found that children questioned by fidgeting (non-
supportive) interviewers described learning activities less
accurately and were more likely to falsely report having
been touched than those questioned by smiling
(supportive) interviewers (Almerigogna, Ost, Akehurst,
& Fluck, 2008). Furthermore, although it is possible to
evaluate the accuracy of children’s reports in laboratory
settings, this is usually impossible in forensic contexts,
so we were unable to address accuracy in this study.
Because this was a correlation study, and our sample
was too small for regression analyses, the unique contri-
bution of pre-substantive techniques to the quality of
children’s substantive responses could not be measured.
Children’s informativeness can be influenced by many
factors, and we are proposing that the pre-substantive
phase plays a significant, though small part. Finally,
because the study was conducted in Malaysia, our
findings will need to be replicated in other cultures
before generalizable conclusions can be made.
Because the pre-substantive phase provides inter-
viewers with opportunities to establish rapport with chil-
dren, explain the purpose of interviews, the importance
of truth-telling and rules of communication, and
help children to practice talking about personally
experienced events, it can be instrumental in fostering
spontaneous=voluntary, informative, and accurate rep-
orting of allegations (Saywitz & Goodman, 1996;
Sternberg et al., 1997). Surprisingly, interviewers’ efforts
to prepare children for investigative interviews in this
study appeared to influence the youngest but not older
children. The findings also revealed possible limits to
the potential benefits of rapport-building, because too
much time spent rapport-building, with the youngest
children in particular, may be counter-productive.
Explanation of the conversational rules, purpose of the
interview, and the children’s roles as informants
appeared to help the youngest children to be informa-
tive. The findings also suggest that interviewers should
monitor the amount of time they spend preparing chil-
dren for substantive questioning. Further research is
needed to identify specific aspects of the pre-substantive
phase that promote as well as hinder informative and
accurate responding during substantive questioning.
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