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Improving Children's Testimonies In Court

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Introduction
The argument of whether or not to use child testimonies in court has been long debated. I believe that children’s testimonies can play a vital role in many court cases. Although there should be a careful protocol when obtaining there statements, so they are not biased into a false statement. Some research shows that there may be techniques we could use in order to improve child’s testimonies, other research shows that children’s testimonies can be manipulated and altered just by the way you phrase the question. People also have to take into account that a child is not fully developed so factors such as language could affect the child’s understanding of what they are being asked. It could also have implication on their ability …show more content…

The also wanted to find out if children are aware of the linguistic expectations they are presented with question. If right, Dale, Loftus, and Rathbun would show that child testimonies could be inaccurate and unreliable. Previous studies discussed by Dale, Loftus, and Rathbun (1978) revealed that adults and children can be influenced by the way a question is formed. Using definite articles and indefinite articles researchers demonstrated that the participants would inaccurately recall an …show more content…

The each participant watched 4 preselected 1 minute videos. After each video they were asked 8 yes or no question with different question forms. Questions could pertain to the absence or presents of a noun or nouns, whether the nouns were singular or plural, the use a definite or indefinite articles and also if the question was affirmative or negative. Half of the participants were asked to give a free recall of everything they could remember, this took place 10 minutes after watching the last

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