Join the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory (CNLM) for a hybrid event featuring Dr. J. Zoe Klemfuss, Associate Professor of Psychological Sciences at the University of California, Irvine.

This event will be held in-person in the Herklotz Conference Center and virtually via Zoom.

Children’s memory reports in legal contexts

Millions of US children are centrally involved in legal investigations each year. They may be questioned as suspected victims or witnesses or in other impactful legal proceedings like custody determinations. As one chilling example, over 3 million children are the subjects of child protective services disposition due to suspected maltreatment annually. In some of the most heinous crimes against children such as child sexual abuse, children’s statements may be the only available evidence. These crimes rarely have other witnesses and because disclosure is routinely delayed, physical evidence is rare as well. My colleagues and I have been examining ways we can help children to give accurate and detailed memory reports of their legally-relevant experiences. In this talk, I will focus on how we’ve been considering child, interviewer, and contextual factors as we examine 1) children’s reports of event time and sequence and 2) interviewer-child rapport and support, and their implications for children’s legal statements.