According to Angela Evans\u2019 research, young children often interchange the verbs \u201cask\u201d and \u201ctell.\u201d<\/p>\n
While that may not seem like a big deal in the grand scheme of things, the swap in words often puts a totally different spin on a child\u2019s testimony in court, says the associate professor of Psychology.<\/p>\n
Evans, internationally known for her work on children\u2019s honesty and child forensic interviewing, plans to further her research after being awarded Brock University\u2019s 2020 Award for Distinguished Research and Creative Activity<\/a>.<\/p>\n The award recognizes faculty whose distinguished research or creative activity demonstrates outstanding research achievements, contributions to the training of future researchers, and strong performance in scholarly or creative performance.<\/p>\n \u201cDr. Evans\u2019 research has made her a foremost expert on how children\u2019s social and cognitive development influences their moral understanding and behaviour,\u201d says Vice-President, Research Tim Kenyon.<\/p>\n \u201cHer prolific publishing record, knowledge mobilization work with community groups, media appearances and opportunities she creates for her students are among the many qualities that have earned her this prestigious award.\u201d<\/p>\n Although the award, which comes with some financial support, is not tied to a specific research program, Evans says she plans on using it to advance her research examining how to best question child witnesses about their experiences.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re interested in what kinds of questions we should ask children to get detailed, accurate reports as well as what types of questions should be avoided because they may create confusion, miscommunication or ambiguous responding that we as adults don\u2019t always pick up on,\u201d says Evans.<\/p>\n \u201cUnderstanding children\u2019s language development is a part of the process of determining what questions to ask or avoid.\u201d<\/p>\n For instance, a child witness might report that a parent \u201ctold\u201d them what happened, when the child really meant that the parent \u201casked\u201d what took place, resulting in the child\u2019s report appearing to have been coached.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have learned through our research that question format, or the way adults ask children questions, can assist in reducing these types of errors,\u201d says Evans.<\/p>\n A child could also answer \u201cyes\u201d to the question of whether the parent \u201cpractised\u201d with them what to say in court. Evans says young children would understand \u201cpractised\u201d to mean \u201cdiscussed.\u201d<\/p>\n Also, during court questioning, children are often asked questions that require a \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno\u201d answer.<\/p>\n \u201cChildren have been shown to provide the most accurate and detailed reports when they\u2019re asked to give an open-ended report,\u201d says Evans. \u201cOne of our challenges is to get children to be asked more open-ended, narrative-type questions both in court and in forensic interviews when they\u2019re being interviewed about their experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n Evans and her team founded the nationwide Canadian Child Interviewing Research Team<\/a>, three Canadian research labs examining ways to get the most honest and accurate reports from child witnesses and victims.<\/p>\n This research team has been able to build partnerships with national Child and Youth Advocacy Centres, as well as police and social workers, to help co-create knowledge around best-practices for interviewing child victims.<\/p>\n This has been a great year for Evans. In addition to the Distinguished Research award, she was also named the 2020 Chancellor\u2019s Chair for Research Excellence<\/a>. Tied to a specific program, she will use that award to investigate what lie-telling looks like in adolescence.<\/p>\n Highlights of Evans\u2019 breakthrough work includes research showing that children\u2019s lie-telling starts at around two years of age<\/a> and that children ages three to five<\/a> will make an effort to keep their word on something they promised. These and other studies are conducted in her\u00a0Social and Cognitive Development Lab<\/a>.<\/p>\n Evans\u2019 external funding includes grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" According to Angela Evans\u2019 research, young children often interchange the verbs \u201cask\u201d and \u201ctell.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":68598,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,3319,1,4,5,38],"tags":[4020,2149,9577,8485,546,522,3325,2196,6725],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68597"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68599,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68597\/revisions\/68599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}