Children's Testimony - Age-Related Patterns of Memory Errors (From Children's Eyewitness Memory, P 36-52, 1987, Stephen J Ceci, et al, eds. - See NCJ-104752)

• NCJ Number: 104755
• Author(s): K J Saywitz
• Date Published: 1987
• Length: 17 pages
• Sale Source: Springer-Verlag
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Children who are under the common legal age limits for giving testimony perform comparably to older youths on many tasks related to memory and recall.

Abstract

Subjects were 24 students in grade 3, 24 students in grade 6, and 24 subjects in grades 9 or 10. They listened to a taped story involving a theft and completed three written tasks involving free recall and recognition both immediately after hearing the story and 5 days later. Children under age 10 provided less complete free recall than older subjects. However, they were able to use recognition cues effectively to remember statements not reported in free recall and also to retrieve as many statements as the two older groups. The youngest children added significantly more extraneous information to their recall than did older subjects. However, they did not distort more of what they recalled than older subjects. Few differences were found between the 11- to 12-year-olds and the 15-to-16-year-olds. However, in many jurisdictions, only the older group's testimony is automatically considered competent in court. Recommendations for further research, data tables, and 48 references. ABI cfw