NCJ Number
124223
Date Published
1989
Length
373 pages
Annotation
This book is designed to help professionals and other adults become better recipients of and assessors of information supplied by children.
Abstract
The book opens with vignettes that illustrate settings in which the meaning of children's behavior is complex and difficult to understand. To help readers better understand the child's perspective, a developmental view is presented; and the role of the adult in determining the nature and quality of information received from children is examined. The book instructs adults in how to structure questions so that children can easily understand them, how to maximize children's ability to recall past events, and how to use play and stories to explore children's feelings and obtain information about sexual abuse and other stressful experiences. Guidelines are offered for dealing humanely with children in legal and medical settings and protecting them from unnecessary stress. One chapter examines the functioning of child witnesses, with attention to how the legal system does and does not meet children's needs. 490 references, name and subject indexes.