Making children into competent witnesses: Reactions to the amicus brief In re Michaels.

and Human DevelopmentIn their amicus brief, M. Bruck and S. J. Ceci (1993/1995) highlight the many ways inwhich children's competence and informativeness can be undercut by incompetentinvestigative procedures and interview techniques. In this article, the authors discussways in which skilled interviewers, with realistic goals regarding the amount and qualityof information that can be obtained from young informants, can instead enhance thequality of children's accounts. The discussion of these issues is informed by a review ofthe scholarly literatures on children's memory, communicative styles and skills, andsuggestibility, as well as by field research on the usefulness of different interviewstrategies.