What Interviewing Skills Should Forensic Psychologists Develop to Conduct Effective Child Custody Evaluations?

Core knowledge in interview protocols, forensic methods, and child development forms the basis on which forensic psychologists can conduct high-quality interviews and defensible child custody evaluations.

Grounding in Developmental Science

Perhaps most fundamentally, forensic custody evaluators need a strong foundation in developmental science. Children’s cognitive capacities, memory processes, linguistic abilities, emotional regulation, and social understanding all differ systematically by age and individual maturity. A question that works well with a twelve-year-old may be completely inappropriate for a four-year-old. A response that seems suspicious from an older child may be entirely typical for a younger one.

Understanding developmental norms and variations allows interviewers to interpret children's responses within the appropriate context, recognize when a child's functioning falls outside typical ranges, and adjust their approach to match each child's capabilities. 

How Do Clinical and Forensic Approaches Differ in Child Custody Interviews?

Effective forensic interviewers are professionals trained in established, evidence-based protocols developed specifically to elicit accurate, complete, and candid information from children. The NICHD Protocol and its revised editions represent decades of research into the most effective ways to structure child interviews. Familiarity with such protocols provides a roadmap for the interview while also offering credibility regarding the methods used.

One of the most important conceptual distinctions involves understanding how forensic interviewing differs from clinical interviewing. While both require rapport and empathy, their purposes diverge significantly. Clinical interviews aim to understand a child's internal experience to provide therapeutic benefit, often involving reassurance and emotional support that might actually compromise the goals of a forensic interview. Forensic interviews prioritize accuracy and completeness of information for legal decision-making, requiring greater structure, neutrality, and documentation. The questions asked, the techniques employed, and the relationship established with the child all differ between these contexts, and conflating the two can undermine the validity of the forensic evaluation.

The technical aspects of forensic interviewing require psychologists to master specific questioning strategies and interpersonal techniques designed to work with children's developmental capacities and psychological states.

How Can Forensic Psychologists Promote Accurate Recall While Minimizing Guessing in Child Custody Interviews?

One of the most critical skills in interviewing children involves structuring questions in ways that encourage genuine memory retrieval rather than guessing. Children, particularly young ones, may feel pressured to provide answers even when they don't actually remember the information being requested.

Research indicates that recall-based questions yield more accurate information than recognition-based questions. When children are asked yes-no questions or forced to choose between presented options, they become less likely to say "I don't know," which increases the risk of guessing and subsequent errors. Instead, interviewers should prioritize open-ended questions that allow children to report what they actually remember without feeling constrained by the question format.

This approach requires particular attention when seeking specific details. Questions about color and number have been found to elicit higher rates of guessing among young maltreated children compared to other “wh-” questions. Additionally, children tend to provide more productive responses when asked about actions rather than descriptions, as actions are generally better encoded in memory.

How Can Forensic Psychologists Work with Reluctant Children in Child Custody Evaluations?

Not all children in custody evaluations are eager or comfortable participants. Many experience conflicted loyalties, fear of consequences, or anxiety about the interview process itself. The ability to address reluctance and foster cooperation can be aided by established protocols such as the Revised NICHD Protocol.

Supportive interviewing involves deliberate communication strategies, including warmly welcoming the child, demonstrating attentive behavior, and reinforcing the child's effort rather than the content of their responses. Research demonstrates that interviewer support can effectively reduce reluctance and increase the informativeness of children's accounts.

When a child displays reluctance, skilled interviewers recognize this as a signal that requires targeted attention rather than persistence with questioning. The appropriate response involves identifying and addressing the child's conflicts in an empathic manner, discussing their negative emotions, and conveying both availability and concern.

This process requires constant monitoring of the child's behavioral cues and readiness to engage. Pushing forward with more direct questions before a child is prepared to respond can compromise both the quality of information obtained and the child's psychological well-being during the interview.

How Can Forensic Psychologists Manage "I Don't Know" Responses in Child Interviews?

The balance between encouraging children to share what they know and respecting the limits of their knowledge presents a nuanced challenge. Forensic interviewers must become proficient in helping children understand when and how to acknowledge uncertainty.

Many interview protocols include explicit instructions about the appropriateness of "I don't know" responses. These instructions serve an important function by reducing guessing and increasing overall accuracy. However, interviewers must also understand the tradeoffs involved. While such instructions reduce inaccurate responses, they may also reduce accurate responses, including valuable instances where a child might otherwise correct an erroneous assumption made by the interviewer.

The instruction phase itself offers diagnostic value. A child who demonstrates excessive eagerness to guess during practice with these instructions may be signaling their general approach to ambiguous questions throughout the interview. Skilled interviewers recognize these patterns and adjust their interpretation of responses accordingly, while also alerting observers to this tendency.

Navigating Complex Forensic Issues

Beyond general interviewing techniques, custody evaluations often involve specialized challenges that require additional skills. Interviewers must be able to assess each child's cognitive capacity and developmental maturity as these factors fundamentally shape how questions should be framed and how responses should be interpreted.

The possibility of coaching represents another concern that interviewers must be prepared to address. Children may have been intentionally or unintentionally influenced by parents or other adults involved in the custody dispute. Skilled interviewers can recognize potential indicators of coaching while avoiding the assumption that coached-sounding statements are necessarily false.

Source misattribution poses another challenge, particularly with younger children who may struggle to distinguish between events they personally experienced, events they were told about, or events they imagined or dreamed. Interviewers need strategies for exploring the origins of children's memories without suggesting doubt about their truthfulness.

Some custody cases involve allegations of parental alienation, which requires specialized interviewing skills. Children who may have been alienated exhibit unique patterns of speech, emotion, and reasoning that differ from those of children providing spontaneous accounts of their experiences and preferences.

While these interview skills and foundational knowledge areas can be described separately, effective forensic interviewing requires their seamless integration. An interviewer must simultaneously monitor a child's developmental level, emotional state, and response patterns while selecting appropriate questions, providing calibrated support, and maintaining awareness of potential biases and forensic concerns.

The stakes in custody evaluations are extraordinarily high. Children's relationships with parents, living situations, and long-term well-being all hang in the balance. The information gathered through forensic interviews often carries substantial weight in judicial decisions. This reality places a profound responsibility on forensic psychologists to develop and maintain the specialized skills necessary to conduct these interviews with both technical precision and human sensitivity.

• Child Custody Evaluation Certificate
• Interviewing, Report Writing, and Testifying in Child Custody Cases
  
• AAFP: Reducing Bias and Error in Forensic Judgment
• Introduction to Using the MMPI-3 in Psychological Practice
• Incorporating the MMPI-2-RF in Family Court Evaluations

Blog Posts

• Ask Children the Right Questions and Eliminate the Guesswork of 'I Don’t Know'
• As a Forensic Psychologist, How Do I Choose a Child Custody Evaluation and Parenting Plan Training that Supports Best Outcomes for the Child?
• What Should Forensic Professionals Know About the Evolution of "Child Custody" Evaluation to "Parenting Plan" Evaluation?
• How Child Custody Evaluations Can Benefit Children
  
• What Works and What Doesn’t – Bias Awareness and Correction Strategies Among Forensic Evaluators