The present study examined the conditions under which toys and model items facilitate children's accounts of personally experienced events. In three experiments, 109 five-to sixyear-old children were interviewed about an event in which they had participated. Experiment 1 varied the similarity of the props to the items from the event while Experiments 2 and 3 varied the number of model items and the method of their presentation. Results showed that increasing the physical similarity of the props to items from the event, adding spatial layout cues, or increasing the number of props provided enhanced the facilitative effects of props on children's accounts. The implications of these results for interviewing children in clinical and legal contexts are discussed.
Until recently children were commonly believed to be unreliable witnesses and their testimony was challenged on a number of grounds (Ceci and Bruck, 1993;Ceci, Ross and Toglia, 1987;Goodman, 1984). There was concern that children could not accurately recall events, that their reports of events were highly susceptible to suggestion and fabrication, and that they had difficulty in distinguishing reality from fantasy (e.g., Stern, 1910; Varendonck, 1911). Recent research suggests, however, that these characterizations underestimate children's abilities. There is now evidence that young children, including preschoolers, can accurately recall events (Fivush, Hudson and Nelson, 1984;Goodman, Bottoms, Schwartz-Kenney and Rudy, 1991) even over quite long time periods (Hudson and Fivush, 1991) and, under some conditions, can resist misleading suggestions (Rudy and Goodman, 1991;Saywitz, Goodman, Nicholas and Moan, 1991). In a recent review of the literature, Ceci and Bruck (1993) concluded `. . . it is clear that childrenΓeven preschoolersΓare capable of recalling much that is forensically relevant'.
One of the most consistent findings in the literature on children's eyewitness memory is that, although young children's free recall accounts of events are typically CCC 0888Β±4080/97/010069Β±19