cur with children's eyewitness accounts due to the fact that an interview can depict the accused perpetrator as a "bad man". It has been shown that children can come to assume and report negative things about someone that they had previously heard described in negative terms. Encouraging a child to visualize or imagine has also been proven to be detrimental to the providing of accurate information about an event. Authority figures and peer pressure are also factors that can mislead a child's memory strategies as well. When all of these circumstances are taken into account, it is easy to see how influenced children can be when it comes to relaying information. But this should not be a final factor when deciding children's influence in the courtroom. As stated before, anyone can be suggested, misled, and pressured, including adults, and studies have shown this. This data shows a need for the standardization of interviewing techniques when deciding eyewitness accounts. It is well known that children encode, store, retrieve, and retain memories differently than adults. But it is up to a qualified interview to release these memories in a positive way. The knowledge base that children use to understand their surroundings and situations can be investigated through proper interviewing and strategies that children are familiar with, such as drawing or play therapy. In many cases of falsified accounts that children have stated, it is often the case that the interviewer used misleading techniques, and unstandardized means of approaching this information. Studies have shown that when children are asked questions in neutral ways, with open ended questions, and unbiased interpreters, their statements were not only more detailed, but also remarkably accurate. Children who were left to answer in any fashion, with no time frame, answered questions in a precise and errorless manner. So the question remains, Can we rely on children? Under u...
