Children's Eyewitness Memory: The Influence of Cognitive and Socio-Emotional Factors

Ensuring children’s accurate disclosure and memory is at the heart of the modern scientific study of children’s testimony. Much of the research derives from legal cases in which children provide crucial eyewitness evidence. Children may be called upon to bear witness to such crimes as murder, domestic violence, kidnapping, robbery, and more. Yet children’s statements in sexual abuse cases are particularly controversial, due in large part to the frequent lack of physical evidence. These legal cases rest to a large extent on the shoulders of children whose cognitive abilities