Barrett

Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.

Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.

Displaying 1 - 1 of 1
Filtering by

Clear all filters

Miscommunication and Use of Sexual Body Terms in Criminal Investigations of Alleged Child Sexual Abuse

Description
When allegations of sexual abuse are tried in criminal court, children are questioned about the abuse that occurred, including questions about the sexual body parts involved in the abuse. Miscommunication is likely to occur between the child and the attorney due to unsupportive questioning techniques and child’s developing understanding of…

When allegations of sexual abuse are tried in criminal court, children are questioned about the abuse that occurred, including questions about the sexual body parts involved in the abuse. Miscommunication is likely to occur between the child and the attorney due to unsupportive questioning techniques and child’s developing understanding of sexual body terms. Given this, we examined how body term type, body term consistency, and attorney-type contributed to miscommunications. We found that children most often used Colloquially Understood-Vague terms (e.g., privates), less often used Colloquially Understood-Specific (e.g., pee-pee) and Anatomically Correct terms (e.g., penis), and least often used Unique terms (e.g., cookie). We had so few miscommunications (N = 19) and defense attorneys asked so few questions about body terms (N = 12) that we were unable to accomplish our original research aims. Instead, we conducted exploratory analyses on age and gender. Younger children (5-8) used Colloquially Understood-Vague terms significantly more often, while older children (9-12) used Colloquially Understood-Specific terms significantly more often. Boys were significantly more likely to use Colloquially Understood-Specific terms than girls but less likely to use Anatomically Correct and Unique terms. The findings of this study can be used to support a shift in educational practices for child sexual body terms towards specific anatomical terms and lead prosecutors to use body mechanic questions rather than open-ended ones.
ContributorsRuiz-Earle, Ciara (Author) / Stolzenberg, Stacia (Thesis director) / Sullivan, Colleen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor)
Created2022-12