ABSTRACT
One of the most difficult problems for investigators of child abuse is deciding whether or not a child's accusations are truthful. General issues of truthfulness, and ways to identify a truthful account, have been the subject of much study by psychologists, in many fields (see Koehnken, 1989). Importantly, psychologists have developed assessment procedures that can be applied to the child's account, and, theoretically, should help to decide whether an account is true. Here, this approach will be referred to as statement assessment (SA).
