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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE 162 ‘High numbers of respondents disclosing to researchers for the first time’ ‘They found that interviewers behaved differently with the two groups’ ‘A parent described how her teenage son told her over a period of days’ Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Document 397-2 Filed 10/29/21 Page 29 of 45 McElvaney proportions of adults have never disclosed such abuse, as evidenced by the high numbers of respondents disclosing to researchers for the first time. Patterns of Disclosure — Partial Disclosure Information on how children disclose over time can be obtained from studies of children who participated in forensic/investigative interviews where children are interviewed by professionals due to concerns that the child has been sexually abused. The issue of partial disclosures was highlighted by earlier studies such as those by DeVoe and Faller (1999) of five- to ten-year olds (i.e. making detailed informal disclosures that were not replicated in formal interviews) and Elliott and Briere (1994) of children aged eight to 15 years (i.e. disclosing only partial information until confronted with external evidence that led to more complete disclosures). More recently, investigators have examined the role of the interviewer and questioning styles in the forensic interview and how this impacts on children’s disclosures and the level of detail provided in interview. Hershkowitz ef al. (2006) compared tapes of interviews with children who disclosed sexual abuse and those who did not (but about whom there was ‘substantial’ reason to believe that they had been abused). They found that interviewers behaved differently with the two groups, using different types of prompts with children who presented as somewhat uncooperative, offered fewer details and gave more uninformative responses at the beginning of the interview. It would appear that interviewers responded to less communicative children by increasing the proportion of closed questions which in turn led to children being less forthcoming. Lamb ef al. (2002) have found that the use of a protocol that emphasises the use of prompts that elicit free narrative (e.g. ‘tell me about that’) as compared with closed questions (those requiring a yes/no response) has resulted in more detail and more accuracy in children’s accounts. Although few studies exist that examine the phenomenon of disclosure in informal settings (when disclosure is made to a friend or family member), some qualitative studies have described this process. McElvaney (2008) quoted one teenage girl who described hinting to her mother prior to disclosing the experience: ‘I didn’t tell her what happened but I was saying things that made her think it made her think that it happened but I didn’t tell her’ (p. 127). A parent described how her teenage son told her over a period of days, keeping the most difficult parts of the story until last: ‘He came out with like it came out over two or three days so you know... ..he’d say well [ve something else to tell you... the bad stuff last... what hurt him most and what he’s saying what hurt him most’ (p. 92) And finally, one young person described how she told her social worker: ‘Tcouldn’t tell her most things but I just gave things to her to read. . . [told her at first I told her bits of it and em then just the others. I finished writing and then I gave them to her. . . later I told her that it was the father as well, (p. 93) This young person had been abused by both a father and son in a family with whom she was staying. Child Abuse Rev. Vol. 24: 159 169 (2015) DOI: 10.1002/car DOJ-OGR-00005939