Children with disabilities can make competent witnesses

A new study led by Victoria University senior lecturer Dr Deirdre Brown challenges the view that children with intellectual disabilities cannot accurately describe their experiences.


The research, conducted at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom, found that children with mild levels of intellectual disability can provide eyewitnesses testimony in court cases as capably as typically developing children of the same developmental level or mental age, especially if they are interviewed soon after the event.

Dr Brown, now a senior lecturer in Victoria University's School of Psychology, was with Lancaster University when the study was conducted. Its findings have been published in the journal Child Development.

Children with intellectual disabilities—significantly low cognitive functioning coupled with significant deficits in adaptive or everyday functioning—make up two to three percent of the population and it is estimated that one in three children with disabilities experiences some form of maltreatment.

However, in many cases, the disclosures of children with intellectual disabilities are not investigated or taken to court, in part because of concern over whether these children can describe their experiences sufficiently and be believed by juries.

“Our findings show that children with intellectual disabilities can provide accurate and detailed information about their experiences when interviewed properly,” says Dr Brown.

“Children with more severe intellectual disabilities (those in the moderate range) could still provide useful descriptions of their experiences, but were less able than typically developing children of the same developmental level and those with mild levels of intellectual disability.

“Interviewers should interview children with intellectual disabilities as soon as possible after a disclosure of maltreatment, and they should consider developmental level and severity of impairments when evaluating eyewitness testimony.”

In the study of 194 British children, those with mild levels of intellectual disability did as well as their typically developing counterparts of the same developmental level or mental age in terms of how much they recalled, how accurate their accounts were, and how they responded to suggestive questions.

“There is no reason why children with mild to moderate intellectual disabilities should not be provided with the same access to the investigative and judicial processes that would be initiated when typically developing children make disclosures of maltreatment,” says Dr Brown. “That may include repeated interviews as well as using an open-ended style of questioning, with more focused questioning delayed until later in the interview.”

The study was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (United Kingdom) and the former Foundation for Research, Science, and Technology (New Zealand) which became part of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.