# Facilitating Completeness in Children's Maltreatment Disclosures

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA · 2021 · $506,303

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract: Facilitating completeness in children’s maltreatment disclosures
 Child maltreatment is one of the most serious threats to children’s well-being. However, substantial
percentages of children either fail to disclose abuse or provide unconvincing disclosures. In order to justify
legal intervention, decision-makers expect children to disclose abuse without excessive prompting, but also to
provide sufficient details about time, number, and physical interactions to convince adults that abuse occurred.
Interviewers are unsure how to elicit such details; children appear unlikely to produce them spontaneously, but
extensive questioning risks error and miscommunication. Given the critical importance of maltreated children’s
disclosure for the protection of children, it is imperative to identify the most sensitive interviewing approaches.
The proposed program of research will involve a series of novel laboratory and field studies designed to
identify interviewing methods that help maltreated children provide complete reports. The project has two aims:
1) To maximize children’s capacity and willingness to disclose adult transgressions; and 2) To identify optimal
question types for eliciting details about time, number, and physical interactions. The aims will be achieved
through five projects. Project 1 will identify and assess field methods for eliciting maltreatment disclosures and
details about time, number, and physical interactions. It will involve detailed analysis of trial testimonies and
forensic interviews with children. Project 2 will test the efficacy of novel interviewing methods in eliciting
transgression disclosures, and Project 3 will identify optimal question types for eliciting details about time,
number, and physical interactions. Projects 2 and 3 will involve laboratory experimental studies with children
who are questioned about suspected transgressions. Valenced questions (questions about “something bad” or
“the worst thing”), paired yes/no questions (yes/no questions followed by a requests for elaboration), and open-
ended questions about time, number, and physical interactions will be assessed for their effect on the
completeness of children’s disclosures. Project 4 will experimentally assess adults’ perceptions of children’s
disclosures and denials of transgressions. It will involve laboratory experimental studies with adults asked for
their evaluation of children questioned utilizing the techniques tested in Projects 2 and 3. Project 5 will test the
efficacy of novel interviewing methods in field experiments with children disclosing sexual and physical abuse.
In addition to the techniques described above, it will test the efficacy of conversation questions (questions
about the child’s conversations with the suspect), the subject of our currently funded research. Our research
program is unique: it combines field observational research, laboratory experimental research, and field
experimental research in an att...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10136455
- **Project number:** 5R01HD087685-05
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
- **Principal Investigator:** THOMAS D LYON
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $506,303
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-03-15 → 2023-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10136455

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10136455, Facilitating Completeness in Children's Maltreatment Disclosures (5R01HD087685-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10136455. Licensed CC0.

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