Evaluating the effectiveness of the self administered interview for witnesses with autism spectrum disorder

Katie Maras, Sue Mulcahy, Amina Memon, Federica Picariello, Dermot Bowler

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

Abstract

The Cognitive Interview (CI) is a widely accepted police interviewing technique and elicits the most detailed reports from most witnesses. However, previous research has found it to be ineffective with witnesses with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and it fails to increase the number of correct details that they recall (Maras & Bowler, 2010). One of the CI’s main components, context reinstatement (CR), involves the witness following verbal instructions from the interviewer to mentally recreate the personal and physical context that they experienced at the time of the event. A number of aspects of this CR procedure may be problematic for witnesses with ASD, including the social component and following a series of verbal instructions. The Self Administered Interview (SAI) is a recently developed evidence-based investigative tool that adopts some of the key components of the CI but without the interactive social element, meaning that it may be more suitable than the CI for witnesses with ASD. We report evidence showing, however, that the SAI is also ineffective for this group and, in contrast to control participants, it does not increase correct details reported, including in the CR stage. Findings will be discussed in terms of both theoretical and practical implications.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - 4 Jul 2013
Event6th Annual Conference & Masterclass of the International Investigative Interviewing Research Group (iIIRG) - Maastricht, Netherlands
Duration: 1 Jul 20135 Jul 2013

Conference

Conference6th Annual Conference & Masterclass of the International Investigative Interviewing Research Group (iIIRG)
Country/TerritoryNetherlands
CityMaastricht
Period1/07/135/07/13

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Evaluating the effectiveness of the self administered interview for witnesses with autism spectrum disorder'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this