The Witness-Aimed First Account (WAFA): A New Technique for Interviewing Autistic Witnesses and Victims
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| Title: | The Witness-Aimed First Account (WAFA): A New Technique for Interviewing Autistic Witnesses and Victims |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Maras, Katie (ORCID |
| Source: | Autism: The International Journal of Research and Practice. Aug 2020 24(6):1449-1467. |
| Availability: | SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 19 |
| Publication Date: | 2020 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Research Tests/Questionnaires |
| Descriptors: | Autism, Pervasive Developmental Disorders, Victims of Crime, Interviews, Questioning Techniques, Recall (Psychology), Memory, Crime, Cognitive Processes, Video Technology, Simulation, Foreign Countries, Adults, Intelligence Tests, Observation |
| Geographic Terms: | United Kingdom (England) |
| Assessment and Survey Identifiers: | Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale |
| DOI: | 10.1177/1362361320908986 |
| ISSN: | 1362-3613 |
| Abstract: | Autistic people experience social communication difficulties alongside specific memory difficulties than impact their ability to recall episodic events. Police interviewing techniques do not take account of these differences, and so are often ineffective. Here we introduce a novel Witness-Aimed First Account interview technique, designed to better support autistic witnesses by diminishing socio-cognitive and executive demands through encouraging participants to generate and direct their own discrete, parameter-bound event topics, before freely recalling information within each parameter-bound topic. Since witnessed events are rarely cohesive stories with a logical chain of events, we also explored witnesses' recall when the narrative structure of the to-be-remembered event was lost. Thirty-three autistic and 30 typically developing participants were interviewed about their memory for two videos depicting criminal events. Clip segments of one video were 'scrambled', disrupting the event's narrative structure; the other video was watched intact. Although both autistic and typically developing witnesses recalled fewer details with less accuracy from the scrambled video, Witness-Aimed First Account interviews resulted in more detailed and accurate recall from autistic and typically developing witnesses, for both scrambled and unscrambled videos. The Witness-Aimed First Account technique may be a useful tool to improve autistic and typically developing witnesses' accounts within a legally appropriate, non-leading framework. |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Notes: | https://dx.doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-854146 |
| Entry Date: | 2020 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1261161 |
| Database: | ERIC |
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| Abstract: | Autistic people experience social communication difficulties alongside specific memory difficulties than impact their ability to recall episodic events. Police interviewing techniques do not take account of these differences, and so are often ineffective. Here we introduce a novel Witness-Aimed First Account interview technique, designed to better support autistic witnesses by diminishing socio-cognitive and executive demands through encouraging participants to generate and direct their own discrete, parameter-bound event topics, before freely recalling information within each parameter-bound topic. Since witnessed events are rarely cohesive stories with a logical chain of events, we also explored witnesses' recall when the narrative structure of the to-be-remembered event was lost. Thirty-three autistic and 30 typically developing participants were interviewed about their memory for two videos depicting criminal events. Clip segments of one video were 'scrambled', disrupting the event's narrative structure; the other video was watched intact. Although both autistic and typically developing witnesses recalled fewer details with less accuracy from the scrambled video, Witness-Aimed First Account interviews resulted in more detailed and accurate recall from autistic and typically developing witnesses, for both scrambled and unscrambled videos. The Witness-Aimed First Account technique may be a useful tool to improve autistic and typically developing witnesses' accounts within a legally appropriate, non-leading framework. |
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| ISSN: | 1362-3613 |
| DOI: | 10.1177/1362361320908986 |
