Forensic developmental psychology is a field of psychology that focuses on "children's actions and reactions in a forensic context" and "children's reports that they were victims or witnesses of a crime". Bruck and Poole (2002) first coined the term "forensic developmental psychology". Although forensic developmental psychology specifically focuses on a child's reliability, credibility, and competency in the courtroom setting, it also includes topics such as autobiographical memory, memory distortion, eyewitness identification, narrative construction, personality, and attachment.
Distinction between forensic, developmental, and forensic developmental psychology
Child testimony process
Similar to adults, children who testify must undergo a testimony process in order to determine their relative competency, reliability, and credibility. This is important because trauma resulting from exposure to an open courtroom or confrontation with a defendant can ultimately lead to inaccurate testimony.
There are several similarities and differences between the competency evaluation for adults and for children. Both adults and children must be deemed as competent in order to testify in court. With regards to children, competency refers to a child's capacity and relative intelligence, their ability to distinguish between truth and lie, and their duty to tell the truth. In order to determine a child's competency, four factors may be considered: the child's ability to distinguish between true and lies along with the duty to speak the truth, the child's ability to perceive the occurrence accurately during that time, the child's ability to independently recollect the occurrence and the child's ability to verbally translate their memory of the occurrence and to answer simple questions about the event.
These guidelines were determined by the Wheeler v. United States (1985) Supreme Court case in which a 5-year-old boy was the only witness to a murder. The boy's testimony was ruled as admissible on the grounds that he was "sufficiently intelligent", could "distinguish between truth and lies", and understand that he was "morally obligated to tell the truth". Although federal guidelines exist for determining a child's competency, the capacities required for a child to be deemed competent also vary from state to state. For example, some states may require a child to be able to differentiate between truth and lie as well as recall past incidents, whereas other states may only require that the child is able to tell the truth.
Along with competency, a child's reliability and credibility must be tested as well. However, the guidelines for a determining a child's reliability and credibility are not as stringent as determining the child's competency. Although it is important to establish a child's relative reliability and credibility for their testimony, a judge cannot bar a witness from testifying on the grounds that he or she is competent but not credible.
Factors impacting children's reports
Although measures exist to try to prevent poor reliability, credibility, and accuracy of children's reports, research of the child testimony process indicates that there are several difficulties that may be associated with the child testimony process, especially with regards to eyewitness testimony. Topics such as language development, memory skills, susceptibility to suggestion, the truth-lie competency, and credibility and deception detection are being researched to determine their impact on a child's competency, reliability, and credibility.
Language development
Individual differences in language development and comprehension may cause difficulties in determining a child's relative competence with the child testimony process and the trial. Although attorneys are required to use language that is developmentally appropriate with young child witnesses, children may still have difficulty understanding the difficult terminology associated with the courtroom. Even if a child's report is accurate, adults can also make inaccurate inferences based on their report. However, some research suggests that the reliability of children's communicative competence can be minimized by better and clearer instructions as well as by more thorough preparation before the trial.