Book Reviews: Child eyewitness testimony in sexual abuse investigations. Bruce Mapes. Wiley, Chichester, 1995. No. of pages 140. ISBN 0-88422-154-7. Price £16.99 (Hardcover). True and false allegations of child sexual abuse: assessment and case management. Tara Ney (Ed.) Brunner/Mazel, New York, 1995. No. of pages 371. ISBN 0-87630-758-6. Price £38.50 (Hardcover).
✍ Scribed by Helen Westcott
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1998
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 68 KB
- Volume
- 12
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0888-4080
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Presenting psychological research in a way that is meaningful for non-academic readers is always a challenge, and these two books provide an interesting comparison as to how to undertake such a task. Both concern investigations of allegations of child sexual abuse, though Mapes focuses more speci®cally on issues relating to children as witnesses. Child Eyewitness Testimony contains 11 chapters covering, amongst other things, forensic assessment, memory, recovered memories of abuse and other `special issues' such as hypnosis and cults, questioning techniques, the interview process, and credibility assessment.
Ney has compiled a wide-ranging collection of chapters from many well-respected contributors. Twenty chapters cover diverse aspects of the assessment and case management of sexual abuse allegations, including, unusually, specialist coverage of adolescents, the phallometric test and the assessment of disabled children. Ney's book is comparable to Mapes in terms of coverage of child witness issues, and relevant chapters include the nature of allegations of sexual abuse, assessing young children's sexual behaviours, children's comprehension of truths, lies and false beliefs, research on memory development, language, professional, ethical and legal issues. Recovered memories of abuse, the cognitive interview and statement validity analysis are also covered.
Although the various contributors to Ney's book dier in the degree to which they are neutral about the material they present and discuss, it is usually apparent for practitioners ± social workers, police ocers etc ± when authors are writing in a more partisan manner, and most are very clear in ¯agging up which arguments are based on empirical research, as opposed to clinical experience, and what the status of that research is. For example,