Children's testimony in the Netherlands - A study of statement validity analysis

The authors first provide a brief overview of Dutch agencies that deal with child abuse and neglect, the approach to child abuse, and the position of children as witnesses in the Netherlands. Next, they present Dutch data on child abuse and neglect and child sexual abuse. They then go on to review studies on statement validity analysis. Finally, they report the results of a study in which they compared the presence of content criteria in the statements of alleged sexual abuse victims in four age groups. The comparison was made using criteria-based content analysis, one of the components of the statement validity analysis procedure.