Children's reports of emotionally laden events: adapting the interview to the child

Abstract

Abstract This study examined the influence of expressive vocabulary and temperament on children's verbal reports about emotionally laden events in different interview conditions. In one of three conditions, 58 children aged between 5 and 7 years were interviewed about a time they had felt happy and a time they had felt scared. The interview conditions were: drawing, in which they were asked to draw and tell; re‐enactment, in which they were asked to re‐enact and tell; and verbal, in which they were simply asked to tell. The principal finding was that, whereas for children in the verbal interview condition expressive vocabulary was associated with the amount of information reported and for children in the re‐enactment condition, temperament had a moderate association with the amount reported, for children in the drawing interview condition, neither temperament nor expressive language was associated with the amount of information reported. Children in the drawing condition reported more information than those in the other two interview conditions. The possible mechanisms underlying these findings and their implications for interviewing children in clinical contexts are discussed. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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