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A great deal of research in the past 25 years has contributed to our understanding of how best to interview children about suspected maltreatment. The disastrous failures of the highly publicized daycare abuse cases led to a flood of research, initially emphasizing the failures of conventional approaches, and more recently highlighting the potential for eliciting complete and accurate reports.  If a child has disclosed abuse, and is willing to disclose again, we know what to do. Research supports the use of interview instructions, narrative practice rapport building, and the use of open ended questions to elicit and to elaborate on …

This book chapter reviews 14 retrospective surveys inquiring into respondent’s child abuse experiences and whether they ever disclosed abuse as children. I discuss the advantages of retrospective surveys (representativeness, reduced likelihood of false allegations, reduced suspicion bias). However, I also emphasize the likelihood of survey reluctance, and explain how this biases upwards estimates of abuse victims’ prior disclosure. If respondents who previously disclosed abuse are more likely to acknowledge abuse to a surveyor than respondents who never previously disclosed abuse, respondents who acknowledge abuse are disproportionately likely to be those who have previously disclosed. Difficulties notwithstanding, the research supports the …