Pergamon Child Abuse & Neglect, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 51-61, 1995 Copyright © 1994 Elsevier Science Lid Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0145-2134/95 $9.50 + .00 0145-2134(94)00106-5 A COMPARISON OF THE EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS OF DEAF AND HEARING CHILDREN STEPHEN PORTER, JOHN C. YUILLE, AND ANDREA BENT Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada Almtraet---Children with hearing impairments have been found to suffer a high rate of physical and sexual victimization relative to children in general. The purpose of this investigation was to compare the amount and accuracy of the information contained in the eyewitness accounts of deaf and hearing children. Fifteen deaf and 11 hearing children, aged 8 to 10 years, individually witnessed a series of slides depicting a wallet theft. Their recall was then tested by using the Step-Wise Interview (Yuille, Hunter, Joffe, & Zaparniuk, 1993) consisting of a free recall component followed by increasingly directive questions. Separate 2 x 2 (deaf/hearing x question type) between-within factorial ANOVAs were conducted on the amount and accuracy of the information in the accounts (A = .025). Results indicated no main or interaction effects for amount recalled. However, a main effect for question type and an interaction effect were evidenced in the analysis on accuracy. Although the accuracy scores of the two groups did not differ in free recall, the deaf children provided much less accurate responses to directive questions whereas the accuracy of the hearing children declined only slightly. Implications for criminal investigations are discussed. Key Words~Child witness, Deaf, Testimony, Memory. INTRODUCTION ALTHOUGH MUCH HAS been learned about the abilities of child eyewitnesses in recent decades (Doris, 1991; Goodman, 1984, Goodman, Aman, & Hirschman, 1987; Goodman & Bottoms, 1993; Yuille, 1988), very little is known about specific populations of children such as children with hearing impairments. There is good reason to conduct such research, however, in that these individuals frequently witness or fall victim to criminal offenses. Research has indicated a high rate of abuse of deaf children in the home and in mainstream and residential settings as compared to other children. Summarizing the findings of several surveys, Sullivan, Vernon, and Scanlan (1987) have estimated that approximately 50% of deaf girls and 54% of deaf boys have been sexually abused. These figures are much higher than those found in the widely-cited Finkelhor (1986) study for children in general (25% and 10% for girls and boys, respectively). Factors influencing this high abuse rate include the geographic isolation of residential schools, the lack of knowledge that deaf children have concerning sexuality, and the belief of offenders that the threat of being reported is small (e.g., Sullivan, Vernon, & Scanlon, 1987). The present study specifically addressed the question of whether the abilities of a population of deaf children to provide testimony differ from those of heating children. It is likely that the courts have retained negative attitudes toward deaf children as witnesses just as suspicions of child witnesses in general have been difficult to eradicate. Despite increas- ing acceptance of children's testimony in the courts, Leippe and Romanczyk (1989) found that trust in recall accuracy continues to increase linearly with the age of the eyewitness (also Received for publication June 14, 1993; final revision received October 20, 1993; accepted October 24, 1993. Requests for reprints should be addressed to Stephen Porter, Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada, V6T IZ4. 51