A influência de dinâmicas do abuso sexual e da idade da criança nos processos mnésicos

: contributos para a adaptação do protocolo do NICHD ao contexto português

Abstract

The present study aimed to understand the influence of the sexual abuse and age of the child dynamics in mnemonic processes, contributing to the adaptation and application of the NICHD protocol to the Portuguese context. The specific objectives consisted in understanding how the abuse frequency, child’s age and the time interval influence, between the first abusive event and the forensic interview, determine the child’s ability to provide information. To this end, we resorted to a 21 children sample allegedly sexually abused and interviewed with the Forensic Interview Protocol NICHD (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development). These interviews were subjected to a content analysis, by counting the total number of words of the child’s speech, on the substantive part of the interview, thus quantify the same. Posteriorly, was elaborated a quantitative analysis of the variables under study. The results of this study demonstrated that there are no significant differences in the frequency of the abuse, child’s age and the time interval influence, between the first abusive event and the forensic interview relative to the child’s ability to provide information. Some of the results allow us to draw conclusions that are in accordance to what the scientific literature indicates, in particular, the fact that younger children are also able to provide information, the quality of the interview potentiate the child’s ability to describe events, the absence of differences in the ability to provide information among children of different ages and before repeated abuse experiments, and the fact that children are able to provide information for long periods of time. These conclusions were explained in the light of literature and conducted scientific studies, as well as in terms of what we consider to be the study limitations.

Date of Award	24 Jul 2014
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Raquel Matos (Supervisor)