ABSTRACT
A child may be a witness to a wide variety of events, may be a crime victim, or may be accused of committing a crime. In any of these circumstances, the child may be asked to provide eyewitness testimony for a court or other legal procedure. Before providing testimony, the child may be questioned by professional investigators as well as a variety of people with no special training in forensic interviewing including family, school staff, and medical professionals. These interactions, the passage of time, and a wide variety of other factors may affect the accuracy of a child witness. Because children are continuously developing both cognitively and physically, their ability to recall and, at a more basic level, to understand events that they witness changes as they grow older. Further, the response of children to factors that may influence their memory of events changes as a child matures. Younger children, in general, are less reliable witnesses and more susceptible to factors that alter the accuracy of their accounts of events. As children develop, their memory improves and their susceptibility to suggestion lessens. By adolescence, they are difficult to distinguish from adults, and like adults, they continue to exhibit some memory errors and remain susceptible to some degree of suggestion.
