Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Child witnesses present challenges for both law and psychology. The question is how to elicit statements from children without sacrificing the truth, the rights of those against whom the child is testifying, and the welfare of the child.

In 2007, Lamb, Orbach, Hershkowitz, Esplin, and Horowitz published in Child Abuse & Neglect a review of empirical research on the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD) Investigative Interview Protocol in which they provided extensive research supporting the conclusion that the NICHD Protocol “comprises a useful and usable set of guidelines that allow trained interviewers to conduct investigative interviews that hew more closely than they otherwise would to universally endorsed professional guidelines” (p. 1212).