The presentation conducted by Jason Dickson on suggestibility seeks to extend our knowledge of the characteristics and mechanisms of children’s sources of error while giving testimonies. The training examines the main finds, trends, and factors influencing children’s testimony. Elements affecting children’s witness are categorized into two groups according to Jason, external influences such as interviewing techniques as well as internal factors such as language and memory. Thus, the training entails discussing findings of cognitive, biological, and social growths since changes in these elements results in developmental differences particularly in children’s suggestibility.
Based on the speaker’s presentation, I learned that children have the capability of reporting events that they have experienced accurately. However, there are multiple techniques which are most likely to generate false reports during the interview such as peer pressure, suggestive questions, and repeated questions among others. Such barriers support the misconception that children cannot differentiate between false and true reports. The findings from the presentation implied that as children develop, they tend to perform well in theory of mind since they perceive that the interviewer might be having existing false insights hence they avoid affirming to the false notions. Nonetheless, as the children continue to grow, their sexual behaviors become private.
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Consequently, the speaker intended to identify the sources of error in children’s testimony. It necessary to comment that, suggestibility in human memory is derived from a phenomenon known as the misinformation effect which happens when the false information influences a child’s mind while giving the testimony. As a consequence, this affects the manner in which the child narrates the witnessed event later on during the interview. Therefore the deceptive information in this effect is termed as the misleading post-event information which affects the reasoning of the child. According to Dickson, children’s testimony is in most instances the only substantiation of alleged abuse hence the need to perform forensic interviews that are free from discrimination, errors, and false reports.
