Memory and suggestibility
It is important to first ask open questions: questions that allow for a full range of response (Griffiths and Milne, 2006). Questions range from very open ‘general invitations’ (“Tell me…”) to biased or leading questions where the answer is presupposed by the adult (“He hurt you, didn’t he?”) (see table below). Research suggests that as a general principle, we should ask as few questions as possible and make any questions as short and open ended as we can so that the child can decide what to focus on (Marchant 2017). It is also important to avoid topic-hopping i.e. moving rapidly from one topic to another and back again.
What questions can be asked will to some extent be influenced by the context for the child, the child’s age and your professional role.
We are often told to avoid (leading) ‘suggestive questions’ but what are these? A leading question is one that implies the answer or assumes facts that are likely to be in dispute. Suggestive questioning refers to a situation where an adult provides a persistent suggestion or uses their status (authority) inappropriately when asking suggestive questions. This is problematic as it can have an effect on the child's interpretation of the event and lead to distortion of memory (Jones and McQuiston 1988).
What questions can be asked will to some extent be influenced by the context for the child, the child’s age and your professional role.
We are often told to avoid (leading) ‘suggestive questions’ but what are these? A leading question is one that implies the answer or assumes facts that are likely to be in dispute. Suggestive questioning refers to a situation where an adult provides a persistent suggestion or uses their status (authority) inappropriately when asking suggestive questions. This is problematic as it can have an effect on the child's interpretation of the event and lead to distortion of memory (Jones and McQuiston 1988).
Memory and questions
As suggestive questions potentially risk leading to a distortion in the child’s memory, it is important to understand how memory works. Memory contains three stages: encoding (registering an experience), storage (committing memory to storage) and retrieval (recalling the past and remembering one’s experiences). A memory of an experience is not stored as a single memory trace, but a series of fragments that we piece together when we are asked to recall and relate that experience (Jones and McQuiston 1988).
When children are asked questions, they retrieve and recount their memories to us. When they respond to open questions (“Tell me…” questions that call for a narrative response, e.g. “What else happened?”), they are remembering past experiences actively by using ‘recall’. When they are asked closed questions (closed “WH” questions, option-posing or yes/no questions, including those worded suggestively), the child ‘remembers’ by recognising whether the information provided is true or not. Recall is more accurate than recognition. When children are asked mis-leading questions, their memories can be distorted. After distortion, children tend to persist with their distorted memory, making further clarification difficult (Jones 2003).
Memory and child sexual abuse
Sexual abuse can affect children’s capacity to encode and register experiences, store them in memory and later on recall and retrieve them. First, children may struggle attributing meaning to their sexual abuse experiences, resulting in less elaborate and more disorganised narratives than narratives about other stressful experiences (Wubs, Batstra and Grietens, 2018). Stress can affect memory in several ways: the release of high levels of stress hormones can disrupt child’s memory storage and retrieval processes, a psychological tendency to disassociate or ‘switch off’ during trauma affects observation and recall (Ellison and Munro, 2016). In addition, research on memory has shown that events that are unspoken and remain secret (such as experiences of CSA) can be less organised and structured and thus harder for the child to retrieve (Jones 2002). Finally, children may take months before they are able to relate a traumatic event that they experienced simply because the fear causes them to suppress their memory (Jones and McQuiston, 1988).
Memory and child development
Children cannot usually remember experiences from their first year of life (Jones 2003). Late in the second year, children start remembering some experiences. For a long time, it was thought that the ability to remember was closely related to the development of language, but we now know that infants can remember some of their experiences well before they acquire language (Fernyhough 2008). From around 20 months children first start to be able to talk about their experiences but may struggle to convey their memories to others while at the same time relating their memories to themselves. Children below the age of three have significant difficulties in retrieval of memory, and of producing a narrative account of an experience, even if they are capable of recalling it (Jones 2003).
During the third year of life children can recall experiences from several months previously relatively freely but they need questions from an adult to be able to do this (Jones 2003). They perform better with specific (directive WH questions) rather than open-ended questions (Hershkowitz et al 2011), and generally, ‘what’, ‘who’ and ‘where’ questions are understood first (by approximately three years of age) (Jones 2003). They may not understand why they need to tell what happened, in fact, they may assume you already know (Marchant 2013).
Preschool children are also more likely to be confused about the exact source of their memories (when, where, whether imagined or directly experienced) and therefore source errors can happen, particularly when responding to suggestive questions or when recalling weaker memories (Jones 2003).
In practical terms, young children may not comply with adult expectations when answering questions: they may attempt to answer questions they do not understand or answer with a single word, or answer them unintelligibly, or by showing rather than telling (Marchant 2013).
By approximately eight years of age, children’s capacity to encode, store and retrieve information is on par with adults. They are better able to communicate their memories because their overall knowledge of the world is greater and they know what to expect from situations. By middle childhood most children also have the ability to distinguish accurately the source of one’s memory (when, where, with whom) (Jones 2003).
By age of 10-12 children can become as adept as adults in remembering prior experiences and in telling about them to adults (Jones and McQuiston 1988).
What does research tell us about reducing suggestibility?
Experimental studies have demonstrated that when children are asked questions about their experiences, the type of question and how it is asked affects the accuracy of their answer. If the questions are leading or introduce new or false information, then the children in these studies could be misled about what had actually occurred. There are three ways for this to occur: 1) the child’s original memory becomes overwritten or distorted by the new, suggested information, by either supplanting it or creating a blended new memory of both original and suggested information; 2) the original information may not have entered the child’s memory in the first place and the suggested information is new; 3) the original and suggested information exist side by side in memory but when the child recalls it, the most recent, suggested information is reported (Jones 2003). The situations that have shown to increase suggestibility are outlined here (hyperlink to relevant section), along with how the chances of misleading the child can be reduced.
Younger children are more suggestible than older ones. However, research has also shown that events of central importance to the child are more robust and difficult to distort (Jones 2003). Children with intellectual disabilities tend to be as suggestible as typically developing children of the same mental age. Children with Autistic Spectrum Condition are not more suggestible than neurotypical children (Klemfuss and Olaguez 2020).
As suggestive questions potentially risk leading to a distortion in the child’s memory, it is important to understand how memory works. Memory contains three stages: encoding (registering an experience), storage (committing memory to storage) and retrieval (recalling the past and remembering one’s experiences). A memory of an experience is not stored as a single memory trace, but a series of fragments that we piece together when we are asked to recall and relate that experience (Jones and McQuiston 1988).
When children are asked questions, they retrieve and recount their memories to us. When they respond to open questions (“Tell me…” questions that call for a narrative response, e.g. “What else happened?”), they are remembering past experiences actively by using ‘recall’. When they are asked closed questions (closed “WH” questions, option-posing or yes/no questions, including those worded suggestively), the child ‘remembers’ by recognising whether the information provided is true or not. Recall is more accurate than recognition. When children are asked mis-leading questions, their memories can be distorted. After distortion, children tend to persist with their distorted memory, making further clarification difficult (Jones 2003).
Memory and child sexual abuse
Sexual abuse can affect children’s capacity to encode and register experiences, store them in memory and later on recall and retrieve them. First, children may struggle attributing meaning to their sexual abuse experiences, resulting in less elaborate and more disorganised narratives than narratives about other stressful experiences (Wubs, Batstra and Grietens, 2018). Stress can affect memory in several ways: the release of high levels of stress hormones can disrupt child’s memory storage and retrieval processes, a psychological tendency to disassociate or ‘switch off’ during trauma affects observation and recall (Ellison and Munro, 2016). In addition, research on memory has shown that events that are unspoken and remain secret (such as experiences of CSA) can be less organised and structured and thus harder for the child to retrieve (Jones 2002). Finally, children may take months before they are able to relate a traumatic event that they experienced simply because the fear causes them to suppress their memory (Jones and McQuiston, 1988).
Memory and child development
Children cannot usually remember experiences from their first year of life (Jones 2003). Late in the second year, children start remembering some experiences. For a long time, it was thought that the ability to remember was closely related to the development of language, but we now know that infants can remember some of their experiences well before they acquire language (Fernyhough 2008). From around 20 months children first start to be able to talk about their experiences but may struggle to convey their memories to others while at the same time relating their memories to themselves. Children below the age of three have significant difficulties in retrieval of memory, and of producing a narrative account of an experience, even if they are capable of recalling it (Jones 2003).
During the third year of life children can recall experiences from several months previously relatively freely but they need questions from an adult to be able to do this (Jones 2003). They perform better with specific (directive WH questions) rather than open-ended questions (Hershkowitz et al 2011), and generally, ‘what’, ‘who’ and ‘where’ questions are understood first (by approximately three years of age) (Jones 2003). They may not understand why they need to tell what happened, in fact, they may assume you already know (Marchant 2013).
Preschool children are also more likely to be confused about the exact source of their memories (when, where, whether imagined or directly experienced) and therefore source errors can happen, particularly when responding to suggestive questions or when recalling weaker memories (Jones 2003).
In practical terms, young children may not comply with adult expectations when answering questions: they may attempt to answer questions they do not understand or answer with a single word, or answer them unintelligibly, or by showing rather than telling (Marchant 2013).
By approximately eight years of age, children’s capacity to encode, store and retrieve information is on par with adults. They are better able to communicate their memories because their overall knowledge of the world is greater and they know what to expect from situations. By middle childhood most children also have the ability to distinguish accurately the source of one’s memory (when, where, with whom) (Jones 2003).
By age of 10-12 children can become as adept as adults in remembering prior experiences and in telling about them to adults (Jones and McQuiston 1988).
What does research tell us about reducing suggestibility?
Experimental studies have demonstrated that when children are asked questions about their experiences, the type of question and how it is asked affects the accuracy of their answer. If the questions are leading or introduce new or false information, then the children in these studies could be misled about what had actually occurred. There are three ways for this to occur: 1) the child’s original memory becomes overwritten or distorted by the new, suggested information, by either supplanting it or creating a blended new memory of both original and suggested information; 2) the original information may not have entered the child’s memory in the first place and the suggested information is new; 3) the original and suggested information exist side by side in memory but when the child recalls it, the most recent, suggested information is reported (Jones 2003). The situations that have shown to increase suggestibility are outlined here (hyperlink to relevant section), along with how the chances of misleading the child can be reduced.
Younger children are more suggestible than older ones. However, research has also shown that events of central importance to the child are more robust and difficult to distort (Jones 2003). Children with intellectual disabilities tend to be as suggestible as typically developing children of the same mental age. Children with Autistic Spectrum Condition are not more suggestible than neurotypical children (Klemfuss and Olaguez 2020).