ABSTRACT
The usefulness of giving instructions to the child about the conversational rules (ground rules) of the interview has been verified in several analog and field studies. When creating the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) protocol, its developers verified the effect that episodic memory training could have on children’s performance during the substantive phase. Other studies have since been conducted: one examined forensic interviews, including memory practice with open-ended questions or not, and two others carried out in an analog context. Regression analyses also revealed that the amount of evidence corroborated by the suspect and by a witness, the presence of maternal protection, adherence to the NICHD protocol guidance, and the length of the substantive part of the interviews predicted increases in the likelihood that the case would lead to criminal charges, while the young age of the child reduced the probability.
