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Facilitating children's use of emotional language

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Facilitating children's use of emotional language

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FACILITATING CHILDREN’S USE OF EMOTIONAL LANGUAGE
by
Elizabeth Carole Ahern

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(PSYCHOLOGY)

Guidance Committee:
Professor Thomas D. Lyon, Chair
Professor Franklin R. Manis
Professor Gayla Margolin
Professor Ferol E. Mennen

December 2012

Copyright 2012 Elizabeth Carole Ahern
ii
Dedication
My dissertation is dedicated to my loving grandparents, William Frank Norris Sr.
and Patricia Eileen Norris, and to my very wonderful godmother, Cheryl Elizabeth
Ahern. I am grateful to have their presence and positive influence in my life and my
heart.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my advisor, Thomas Lyon, for helping me pursue my
passion and making my experience in graduate school a very positive one. His tireless
enthusiasm, encouragement and advisement facilitated my development as a researcher,
child forensic interviewer and person. I am exceedingly grateful to work alongside him
on studies I find challenging and meaningful. I also thank Jodi Quas for kickstarting my
career. I hope that I can offer my future students as much support, knowledge, energy
and warmth that Tom and Jodi have provided me. I thank my doctoral committee,
Franklin Manis, Gayla Margolin and Ferol Mennen, for their support of my dissertation.
I am extremely excited to expand the scope of my research in the years ahead.
I thank the staff at the Los Angeles Dependency Court who helped make
conducting the dissertation enjoyable. I also thank Angela Kim, Vicki Wang, Vera
Chelyapov, Leah Mireles, Kate Greenfield, Sneha Bhargava, Wendy Garcia-Nava, Ruth
Lee and Emily Yamamura for the huge amount of work they provided me by collecting
and transcribing data. I thank Nicholas Scurich, Daryaneh Badaly, Elizabeth Rush,
Lindsay Wandrey, Zoe Klemfuss and Stacia Stolzenberg for kindly reading portions of
the manuscript and providing feedback.
I am grateful to Kathleen Adams for giving me the invaluable opportunity to work
first-hand with investigation teams in the child maltreatment field. My experiences with
her staff at the Center for Assault Treatment Services will continually inform my research
and remind me of the importance of translating sound research into practice.
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I am very grateful to the many children and families I have worked with over the
past several years. I especially thank the children who participated in the present study,
the children I have interviewed in forensic settings and the children I watched over at the
Oak Grove Institute. I wish them the absolute best in their futures and will always feel
privileged to have learned so much from them.
I am grateful to my parents, Keith and Judy Ahern, who role modeled to me the
values of hard work, perseverance and a positive attitude. I also thank my lifelong
friends, Jennette Allen, Colette Andresen-Mora, Jacqueline DeHuff and Elizabeth Holm,
and my brothers and sisters, Keith, Bryson, Avonlea, Christian, Collin and Maisie Ahern.
Finally, I thank Charles Stolarek for keeping me grounded and reminding me of
the important things in life. His undying support, thoughtfulness, positivity and care
mean more to me than I can ever express. I am incredibly lucky to have him at my side.
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Table of Contents
List of Tables vii

List of Figures viii

Abstract ix

Chapter 1: Introduction 1
Extant Research on Children’s Spontaneous Use of Emotional Language 2
Why Don’t Children Use Emotional Language in their Narratives? 5
What is the NICHD Protocol? 12
NICHD Procedures for Rapport Building and Open-Ended Prompts 15
Methodological Limitations in Autobiographical Research 18
Interventions Increasing Children’s Use of Emotional Language 20
Current Study 30

Chapter 2: Method 36
Participants 36
Materials and Procedures 36
Transcription 41
Coding 42

Chapter 3: Results 45
Analytical Overview 45
Preliminary Analyses 45
Rapport Building Phase 48
Story Stem Phase 63

Chapter 4: Discussion 81
Effects of Emotional Rapport Building and Cued-Emotion Prompts 81
Effects of Age 83
Effects of Valence 83
Possible Reasons for Lack of Rapport Building Effects on Story 86
Responses
Limitations 88
Field Implications 91
Future Studies 92

References 95

Appendix A: Scripted Interviewer Language 129

Appendix B: Modified LIWC Affect Dictionary Coding Instructions 140
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Appendix C: Cued-Emotion Prompt Administration Success 141
Rate Manipulation Check

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List of Tables

Table 1: Means (Standard Deviations) to Icebreaker Prompts 45

Table 2: Effects of Rapport Condition and Age on Rapport Spontaneous 49
Language Production: Means (Standard Deviations)

Table 3: Effects of Event Valence and Age on Spontaneous Language 51
Production Among Children in Emotional Rapport Building
(n =71): Means (Standard Deviations)

Table 4: Effects of Rapport Condition and Age on Children’s 54
Rapport Prompted Language Production:
Means (Standard Deviations)

Table 5: Effects of Event Valence and Age on Rapport Prompted 57
Language Production in Children in Emotional Rapport Building
(n = 71): Mean (Standard Deviations)

Table 6: Effects of Rapport Condition, Age and Prompt Type on Rapport 60
Prompted Language Production: Means (Standard Deviations)

Table 7: Effects of Story Valence, Rapport Condition and Age on 65
Story Spontaneous Language Production:
Means (Standard Deviations)

Table 8: Effects of Story Valence, Rapport Condition, Age, and 69
Prompt Type on Story Prompted Language:
Means (Standard Deviations)

Table 9: Effects of Story Valence, Age and Prompt Type on Story 72
Prompted Language Production: Means (Standard Deviations)

Table 10: Effects of Story Valence, Rapport Condition and Age to Story 80
How-Feel Prompts: Means (Standard Deviations)

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List of Figures
Figure 1. Percentage of Emotion Words in Rapport Spontaneous 56
and Prompted Language Production

Figure 2. Total Number of Words to Positive versus Negative Emotional 58
Rapport Building Events (n = 71)

Figure 3. Average Number of Total Words to Each Rapport 62
Prompt Type (n = 50)

Figure 4. Average Number of Emotion Words to Each Rapport 63
Prompt Type (n = 50).

Figure 5. Number of Emotion Words in Spontaneous Language 67
Production to Positive and Negative Stories

Figure 6. Average Total Number of Words to Each Story Prompt Type 75

Figure 7. Average Number of Emotion Words to Each Story Prompt Type 76

Figure 8. Average Number of Emotion Words to Each Prompt Type for 78
Positive and Negative Stories

Figure 9. Average Total Number of Words to Positive and Negative Stories 78

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Abstract
The study examined the effects of rapport building (emotional, NICHD) and
prompt type (what-next, cued-action, cued-emotion, what-think) on 142 4- to 9-year-old
maltreated children’s spontaneous and prompted emotional language. Children in the
emotional rapport building condition narrated the last time they felt good and the last
time they felt bad on the playground. Children in the NICHD rapport building condition
narrated their last birthday party and what happened yesterday. Following rapport
building, all children were presented a series of story stems about positive and negative
situations. Emotional rapport building demonstrated some positive albeit temporary
effects on children’s use of emotional language. Cued-emotion prompts appeared to be
the most productive in eliciting emotional language. Overall, there were few effects due
to age. Children often produced less emotional language when describing negative
events, particularly with respect to their spontaneous utterances, suggesting reluctance.
These differences largely disappeared when children were asked additional questions,
particularly cued-emotion questions. The results support the utility of emotional rapport
building and cued-emotion prompts as a means of increasing children’s use of emotional
language.

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Introduction
The extent to which children’s use of emotional language can be increased in the
context of free recall interviews is of considerable theoretical and practical interest
(Lyon, Scurich, Choi, Handmaker, & Blank, 2012). Theoretically, knowledge
concerning interview interventions that influence children of various ages provides
insight into cognitive and social development. Practically, children are routinely
questioned about alleged experiences, including day-to-day contexts about mundane
events and forensic contexts about emotional events involving abuse.
The purpose of the present study was to examine factors influencing children’s
use of emotional language in a large sample of maltreated children, with a specific focus
on how various interview techniques affect children’s use of emotional language. A
literature review on children’s use of emotional language, including reasons as to why
children might not spontaneously mention emotional information and patterns regarding
age and child maltreatment status, precedes more focused discussion on interviewing
techniques. Emotional language was defined as any utterance related to emotions, which
included explicit emotion labels, emotion signaling facial displays and words reflecting
preference (Salmon, Roncolato, & Gleitzman, 2003). Maltreated children are particularly
likely to be interviewed about aversive life experiences, and their lack of emotional
demeanor is often at issue in legal contexts (e.g., Coy v. Iowa, 1988; Golding, Fryman,
Marsil & Yozwiak, 2003; Lyon & Ahern, 2011; Myers, et al., 1999; Regan & Baker,
1998) with their minimal emotion reporting about alleged abuse experiences (Lamb, et

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al., 1997; Lyon et al., 2012; Westcott & Kynan, 2004) preventing complete descriptions
of alleged abuse experiences (Lyon & Ahern, 2011).
Two factors are potentially important in influencing maltreated children’s use of
emotional language. First, children’s participation in emotional rapport building might
increase their awareness and willingness to report emotional information spontaneously.
Spontaneous language production is important because it is completely generated by the
child and perhaps the most critical part of children’s testimony. Second, children’s
responses to different types of prompts might increase their reporting of emotional
information. Research relevant to each of these factors will be considered in turn,
including a description of the interview techniques currently used in the most widely-
researched interviewing protocol, the National Institutes of Child Health and Human
Development (NICHD) Child Interviewing Protocol.
Extant Research on Children’s Spontaneous Use of Emotional Language
Most studies have neglected to examine children’s ability to spontaneously
articulate their emotions within interview contexts. Most research examining children’s
autobiographical accounts focus on detail accuracy and quantity without coding for
emotional language use within children’s narratives (e.g., Ornstein, Baker-Ward, Gordon,
& Merritt, 1997; Peterson, 1996; Peterson & Bell, 1996; Peterson, Sales, Reese, &
Fivush, 2007; Peterson & Whalen, 2001). Clinical studies that ask children, including
sexually abused children, about their emotional reactions to past events rely on
psychological assessments (e.g., Cohen, Deblinger, Mannarino, & Steer, 2004; Cohen,
Mannarino, & Staron, 2006; Deblinger, Lippmann, & Steer, 1996), yes/no questions

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(e.g., Foa, Johnson, Feeny, & Treadwell, 2001; Horowitz, Wilner, & Alvarez, 1979;
Pynoos, Rodriguez, & Steinberg, 1998), frequency scales (e.g., Foa et al., 2001; Ronan,
Kendall, & Rowe, 1994) or likert scales (e.g., La Greca & Stone, 1993), all of which are
closed-ended interview techniques that do not elicit narrative responses. Similarly,
studies on children’s developing understanding of emotions often rely on yes/no or
option-posing questions (e.g., Gnepp & Chilamkurti, 1988; Gnepp, McKee, & Domanic,
1987; Harris, 1983; Whitesell & Harter, 1996) and/or ask children to point to scales or
models in order to depict emotional reactions (e.g., Gnepp et al., 1987; Guttentag &
Ferrell, 2008; Harris, 1983; Harter & Buddin, 1987; Peng, Johnson, Pollock, Glasspool,
& Harris, 1992; Weisberg & Beck, 2010; Whitesell & Harter, 1996).
The few studies examining the emotional content children freely recalled when
describing past events reveal that children’s emotional reporting is infrequent and brief.
More than half of 3- to 5-year-olds failed to mention emotional information when
recalling past positive and negative events (Sales, Fivush & Peterson, 2003) and 60% of
8- to 10-year-olds did not mention any emotional reactions when writing everything that
happened during a conflict they experienced (Walton, Harris & Davidson, 2009). Most
children describing the death of a loved one or a pet also omit emotional information
(Menig-Peterson & McCabe, 1977). The amount of emotional language that children use
when describing past events hovers between zero to four emotion words per narrative
(Butler, Gross & Hayne, 1995; Fivush, 1993; Fivush, McDermott & Bohanek, 2008;
Hamond & Fivush, 1991; McDonald & Hayne, 1996; Peterson & Biggs, 2001; Peterson
& Biggs, 1998; Salmon et al., 2003)

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Age
Possibly because of the low overall rate of emotion words in children’s narratives,
most studies show no age differences despite wide age ranges (Ackil, Van Abbema, &
Bauer, 2003 [3- to 12-year-olds]; Bahrick, Parker, Fivush, & Levitt, 1998 [3- to 4-year-
olds]; Fivush, Hazzard, Sales, Sarfati, & Brown, 2003 [5- to 12-year-olds]; Habermas,
Meier, & Mukhtar, 2009 [5- to 8-year-olds]; Salmon, et al., 2003 [5- to 7-year-olds]).
Only a handful of studies report age differences in children’s use of emotional language.
In a study examining children’s narratives about injuries, children’s emotional language
(e.g., cognition, affect) became more frequent with age in a sample of 2- to 13-year-olds
(Peterson & Biggs, 1998) but the age difference was due to the 2- to 3-year-olds
providing almost no evaluative content. In fact, the 4- to 5-year-olds provided similar
amounts of emotional language as the 9- to 13-year-olds (Peterson & Biggs, 1998). In a
study examining 3½- to 9 ½-year-olds’ narratives about the deaths of loved ones or pets,
only two children (2%), both 9-year-olds, included emotion words in their narrations
whereas none of the younger children included emotion words (Peterson & McCabe,
1977).
Maltreatment
Similar patterns emerge among maltreated children’s reports, with studies on
maltreated populations showing that most children reporting abuse in investigative
interviews omit their subjective reactions to abuse (Lamb et al., 1997 [51%]; Westcott &
Kynan, 2004 [80%]). One study reported age differences in emotional language use for
maltreated children. Among 70 children alleging sexual abuse in forensic interviews,

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only one child (5%) younger than seven years old included spontaneous descriptions of
emotion, whereas five (23%) 7- to 9-year-olds and eight (36%) 10- to 12-year-olds did so
(Westcott & Kynan, 2004).
The common theme from the above studies is that few children report their
emotional reactions to events and that when emotional reactions are reported by children,
they are brief. Moreover, in most studies, even the oldest children report similarly low
rates of emotional language. The limited amount of research on maltreated children
reveals similar patterns of emotional language use. Thus, it is important to consider why
children might not be including emotional information in their reports.
Why Don’t Children Use Emotional Language in their Narratives?
There are several reasons why children may not mention emotions when
describing past events. First, child characteristics, including capabilities and willingness
to report on emotions, may prevent emotional language use. Second, poor interviewing
methods used in child autobiographical research studies may have decreased overall
verbal productivity and, in turn, emotional language productivity.
Capability
Some researchers and practitioner guides state that children’s capabilities to
express their emotions are deficient (Aldridge & Wood, 1997; 1998). Aldridge & Wood
(1997) caution child interviewers that “questions tapping emotions may well be
unproductive with children under the age of at least 8 years, due to their limited linguistic
repertoire” (p.1232), claiming emotion inquiries presented to children may “wrongly
promote the impression that the child is not linguistically competent to give evidence” (p.

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1232). However, there is substantial evidence from laboratory research and observational
studies that attest to children’s early abilities to understand emotions and verbally report
their emotional experiences.
Children begin to use emotional language almost as soon as they begin to talk as
they acquire emotion words in their second year of life (Bretherton & Beeghly, 1982;
Bretherton, McNew, & Smith, 1981; Wellman, Harris, Banerjee, & Sinclair, 1995) with
utterances of basic emotions (e.g., happy, sad) and desires (e.g., wanting, liking)
emerging by 24 months of age (Bretherton & Beeghly, 1982; Bretherton, et al., 1981;
Saarni & Buckley, 2002).
Children as young as three years of age appreciate the cause-and-effect
relationships between emotions and events (Bretherton & Beeghly, 1982; Hood &
Bloom, 1979). Young children can explain emotional reactions through relying on
situational scripts (e.g., Harris, 1983; Harris, 2008; Harris, Olthof, Meerum Terwogt, &
Hardman, 1987; Lewis, 1989), recognizing the obtainment or obstruction of goals (e.g.,
Stein & Levine, 1989), and appreciating the influences of thoughts, beliefs and desires on
emotions (e.g., Deutsch, 1974; Gnepp et al., 1982; Harris et al., 1989; Lagattuta &
Wellman, 2001).
There is also some empirical support for the possibility that children can articulate
moral emotions at early ages. By two years of age, children openly speak about
obligation and blame with respect to others’ feelings and social rules (Dunn, 1987), tattle
on wrongdoings (den Bak & Ross, 1996) and verbally apologize (Schleien, Ross, & Ross,

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2010). At 2½- to 5- years of age, children have been shown to acknowledge regret (e.g.,
saying “I’m sorry”) and anger about transgressions (Wright et al., 2008).
Children as young as six years old can acknowledge mixed feelings when the
components of an emotionally-charged episode are presented separately (Peng et al.,
1992) which contrasts previous research claims that children cannot fully appreciate
mixed emotions until 11 years of age (e.g., Harter, 1982, 1983; Harter & Buddin, 1987;
Donaldson & Westerman, 1986; Harter & Whitesell, 1989).
Lastly, the study from which Aldridge & Wood (1997) make their strongest
claims to not to ask children about emotions was critiqued as grossly underestimating
children’s abilities to report emotional information for several reasons (see Harris &
Jones, 1997, for a complete review). The story situations presented to children to identify
emotional understanding may have construed different emotions by children than what
the experimenters intended (e.g., being stuck on top of a jungle gym was expected to be
associated with fear by the researchers whereas children associated the scenario with
sadness). In addition, the question children received, “How do you think s/he feels about
that?” might have prevented children from fully expressing their emotional understanding
of the story events in two ways. First, younger children may have responded more
literally than older children to the question, and simply stated protagonist emotions,
whereas older children may have responded with more liberal interpretations of the
question, and stated emotional reactions in addition to physical sensations and thoughts.
Second, the question asks children generally about emotional reactions, which may have
led children to attend to the most salient event aspect in lieu of attending to the different

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aspects contained within each event. In other words, the extent to which events were
complex (e.g., getting one’s hair pulled might elicit anger at the perpetrator but sadness
over the transgression) might not have been fully represented by virtue of question
ambiguity (Peng et al., 1998).
Maltreatment. Some research suggests that maltreated children are limited in
their abilities to express emotions, including studies examining maltreated children’s
emotional understanding (Camras, Sachs-Alter, & Ribordy, 1996; Rogosch, Cicchetti, &
Aber, 1995; Shipman & Zeman, 1999) and language (Cicchetti & Beeghly, 1987).
However, there are reasons why these studies may underestimate maltreated children's
use of emotional language. Studies showing that maltreated toddlers reported fewer
internal state words than non-maltreated peers often rely on mother-child observations
and maternal interviews (e.g., Cicchetti & Beeghly, 1987) in which maltreated children
had fewer opportunities to reference emotions than non-maltreated children as
maltreating mothers were less likely to discuss emotions than non-maltreating mothers
(e.g., Shipman & Zeman, 1999; Shipman et al., 2007).
Some research has documented that maltreated children can report a wide range
of emotional reactions to abuse which include sadness, shock, fear, anger, vulnerability,
ambivalence (Berliner & Conte, 1990; Lyon et al., 2012; Sas & Cunningham, 1995) and
abilities to differentiate between emotions they felt at different points in time (Berliner &
Conte, 1990; Lyon et al., 2012). In addition, sexually abused children when describing
their decision to disclose mention feelings of embarrassment and fear (Goodman-Brown,
Edelstein, Goodman, Jones, & Gordon, 2003; Kellogg & Menard, 2003; Sas &

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Cunningham, 1995; Sauzier, 1989; Summit, 1983). However these studies are limited to
children six years of age or older (Lyon et al., 2012; Kellogg & Menard, 2003) or average
ages of 12 (Sas & Cunningham, 1993) or 10 years (Sauzier, 1989). In addition, the
maltreated children in these samples likely demonstrated an initial willingness to talk
about abuse because their abuse discovery was likely due to a prior disclosure (e.g.,
Berliner & Conte, 1990; Sas & Cunningham, 1993; Sas & Cunnignham, 1995; Lyon, et
al., 2012; Goodman-Brown et al., 2003).
Willingness
The issue of children’s willingness to report emotions is especially relevant to
maltreated children who are asked to describe negative life events. Studies examining
event valence highlight that children might be reluctant to report emotions when asked
about intensely negative experiences.
Several studies have demonstrated that children’s use of emotional language
varies with the emotional intensity of the event. When events were experienced as
extremely stressful, children included less internal state information in their narratives
(e.g., Peterson & Biggs, 1998). Studies on children’s experience of painful cancer
treatments (Wolitzky et al., 2005), terrorist attacks (Fivush et al., 2003b), and natural
disasters (Bahrick, et al., 1998; Parker, et al., 2006; Sales et al., 2005) routinely show that
children who experienced high degrees of anxiety provided less emotional language in
their verbal reports about past events.
With respect to moderately negative events, the amount of emotional language
children use across studies varies. Some studies report no differences in children’s use of

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emotional language between moderately negative and non-negative events (Peterson &
Biggs, 1998; Sales et al., 2003; Salmon et al., 2003). For example, 3- to 8-year-olds in
one study produced only one or two emotion words when recounting events that elicited
happiness, surprise and anger (Peterson & Biggs, 2001). In contrast, other research
reports that children use more emotional language to moderately negative events such as
losing a soccer game (Baker-Ward, Eaton & Banks, 2005) or being asked to report a time
one felt sad (Fivush et al., 2003b) than to positive or neutral events (e.g., Baker-Ward,
Eaton & Banks, 2005; Gobbo & Raccanello, 2007; Habermas et al., 2009; Fivush, et al.,
2003b; Fivush, Sales, & Bohanek, 2008).
Age. Children’s reluctance to use negative emotional language is also reflected in
some laboratory research showing that younger children, in particular, may be less
expressive of negative emotion than older children. Five-year-olds were much less likely
than 7-year-olds to describe themselves as sad (Glasberg & Aboud, 1982) and younger
children usually “opt” for the positive feelings when presented with a protagonist in
conflict over positive and negative emotions (e.g., Harter, 1983). There is also some
evidence that older children produce more evaluative detail when recalling negative
events than younger children (e.g., sexual abuse, death). An examination of children’s
within-subject narratives about happy, mad and surprised events, shows that 8- year-olds
provide more evaluative details (e.g., cognitive state words) when discussing events
related to surprise and anger than 3- and 5- year-olds (Peterson & Biggs, 2001).
Younger children might be more inclined to underreport negative emotions than
older children because of how they perceive their emotional experience and anticipate

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their ability to cope with distressing feelings (Harter & Buddin, 1987). During early
childhood children rely on automatic coping processes (Fivush, et al., 2007), and, before
the age of six, children perceive emotions as uncontrollable and unchangeable. For
example, second graders reported that they would not be able to “do something” to
decrease the experience of feeling awful (Ferguson, Stegge, & Damhuis, 1991). With
age, children develop more of a sense of control and confidence in their ability to re-
direct their conscious attention to a distractor in order to change their emotional
experience (Saarni, 1997). Through middle to late childhood children use more effortful
strategies to manage unwanted affect, such as problem-focused coping (Compas, Banez,
Malcarne, & Worsham, 1991) or emotion-focused coping (Compas, Malcarne, &
Fondacaro, 1988). By early adolescence, children report feeling in charge of and less
overwhelmed by their emotions (Harter & Whitesell, 1989).
Maltreatment. Maltreated children may be particularly less inclined to talk about
emotions regarding negative events due to the intensity of negative events that they
experience. Research that maltreated children suppress negative emotion (Shipman &
Zeman, 2001) and inhibit affective displays (Maughan & Cicchetti, 2002; Shipman &
Zeman, 2001) more often than non-maltreated children stands in contrast to studies
demonstrating that maltreated children use more negative affective tone and expect more
negative adult reactions than non-maltreated children (e.g., Shields, Ryan & Cicchetti,
2001; Shipman et al., 2007; Shipman & Zeman, 1999; Shipman & Zeman, 2001). One
explanation for the contrast in research findings might be that maltreated children
experience more intense events and therefore more emotional intensity than non-

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maltreated children. Maltreated children might suppress more affect than non-maltreated
children, but the intensity of the negativity of their affect is greater than what non-
maltreated children experience, outweighing the degree to which maltreated children
suppressed their emotions. Given maltreated children’s exposure to intensely negative
events they may be less inclined to want to discuss strong emotional reactions. A recent
study revealed that maltreated children used less emotional language when talking about
negative than non-negative personally experienced events whereas non-maltreated
children did not exhibit this pattern (Greenhoot, Johnson, & McCloskey, 2005). Such
findings highlight the possibility that the higher intensity of negative events that abused
children likely experienced, in contrast to non-abused, children may have contributed to
this finding.
Given the reluctance that might underlie children’s lack of emotional language,
interventions that address motivational issues and potentially remind children to include
emotional language should be developed. Two child interviewing techniques might be
useful: rapport building and open-ended prompts. Before discussing these techniques, it
is important to review the research and NICHD Protocol on which these techniques are
based.
What is the NICHD Protocol?
The NICHD protocol is the most widely researched child interviewing guideline
and is currently considered the gold standard interviewing method for child witnesses
(Lamb et al., 2007). The NICHD Protocol is a phased investigative interview that scripts
the use of empirically based techniques shown to maximize the amount of reliable

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information children report (Lamb et al., 2008). Over the past fifteen years, thousands of
NICHD-based child interviews conducted internationally have been examined by various
research groups, replicating the effects that children interviewed using the NICHD
Protocol provide more details that are more likely to be accurate than children
interviewed without the Protocol (e.g., Cyr et al., 2006; Cyr & Lamb, 2007; Lamb,
Orbach et al., 2006; Lamb, Sternberg et al., 2006; Orbach et al., 2000; Sternberg, Lamb,
Orbach et al., 2001). The NICHD Protocol includes interview instructions, rapport
building, and a transition into the substantive phase of the interview. Two NICHD
Protocol components are particularly central in increasing children’s verbal productivity
generally: rapport building and cued-invitations.
Importance of Rapport Building
The development of rapport building in investigative interviews encourages
children to overcome their reluctance to disclose aversive events (Aldridge & Wood,
1998; Goodman & Bottoms, 1993; Hynan, 1999; McBride, 1996; Powell & Thomson,
1994) by increasing children’s willingness to interact with the interviewer (Walker &
Warren, 1995).
Field and laboratory studies reveal that children can be trained, during rapport
building to provide lengthy narrative reports about past events (Hershkowitz, 2009;
Sternberg et al., 1997; Roberts, Lamb, & Sternberg, 2004). One field experiment directly
manipulated the types of questions children received in the rapport building phase of
investigative interviews. Rapport building using open-ended questions about NICHD
prescribed topics (e.g., what happened yesterday, recent birthday) elicited two and a half

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times more abuse-relevant details during the substantive phase of the interview than
closed-ended rapport building questions about the same topics (Sternberg et al., 1997).
To examine the accuracy of information children provided, a laboratory experiment was
conducted in which rapport building was manipulated to contain either closed-ended or
open-ended questions. Children exposed to open-ended rapport building provided more
accurate reports during the substantive phase than children exposed to the closed-ended
rapport building (Roberts et al., 2004). Although the control groups in both studies
contained a rapport building phase, the use of closed-ended questions during rapport
building elicited fewer and less reliable details from children than open-ended questions.
Such findings highlight how the structure of rapport building (i.e., the use of open-ended
prompts) can affect children’s subsequent reports.
Importance of Open-Ended Prompts
Open-ended prompts are tied to increases in children’s response accuracy due to
their reliance on free recall memory and to increases in response length (Lamb et al.,
2007) over closed-ended prompts. Some studies report that young children provide
longer narratives to free recall than recognition prompts (e.g., Lamb et al., 1996a,b;
Sternberg et al., 1997) whereas other studies report that children’s free recall is
impoverished (e.g., Baker-Ward, Gordon, Ornstein, Larus, & Clubb, 1993; Goodman &
Reed, 1986; Hamond & Fivush, 1991; Orbach & Lamb, 2000; Peterson & Bell, 1996;
Salmon, Bidrose & Pipe, 1995). The contrast in findings may due to several reasons.
Studies finding that children’s free recall is impoverished likely neglected to use high
quality interview techniques (e.g., rapport building, cued invitations) whereas studies

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finding that children respond in greater lengths to free recall prompts use NICHD-based
techniques known to elicit additional details from free recall memory. It is also likely
that studies finding that children’s free recall is incomplete began asking children
recognition questions before exhaustively using free recall questions. Thus, children
received more recognition prompts than free recall prompts. In turn, increased
productivity to recognition prompts may have been due to the increased number of
recognition prompts children received because these studies calculated the overall
quantity of details rather than the number of details elicited per question (e.g., Lepore,
1991). When the number of prompts are considered, children reported three to five times
the amount of information, on average, to open-ended than closed-ended prompts
(Sternberg et al., 1997). Researchers and practitioners have reached universal consensus
that open-ended prompts are key to high quality interviews (Lamb et al., 2008; Lamb et
al., 2007).
NICHD Procedures for Rapport Building and Open-Ended Prompts
Building on the research supporting the use of rapport building and open-ended
prompts, the NICHD Protocol scripted the administration of rapport building and open-
ended prompts for use in child forensic interviews.
NICHD Rapport Building
The first component of NICHD rapport building comprises the “icebreaker” phase
designed to create a relaxed supportive environment during which the interviewer
demonstrates interest in the child’s preferential likes and dislikes. Children are asked to
discuss activities they like and do not like to do (e.g., “Tell me about things you like to

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do.” “Tell me more about [activity]”). The second component of rapport building
includes episodic memory training which is designed to familiarize children with the
open-ended prompts that will be used in the substantive phase while also demonstrating
the specific level of detail expected of them (Lamb et al, 2007; Sternberg et al., 1997).
For episodic memory training, children are prompted to describe two recently
occurring “neutral” events (e.g., last birthday party, what happened yesterday). For each
event, children’s free recall is prompted through various open-ended prompts.
NICHD Open-Ended Prompts
The NICHD Protocol scripts open-ended prompts for interviewers to use with
children (Lamb et al., 2008) and recommends minimal use of closed-ended prompts (e.g.,
yes/no or forced choice questions). Open-ended prompts are associated with increases in
the amounts of information children report over closed-ended prompts (e.g., Lamb et al.,
2003) with children as young as four years of age. Although research has pointed to the
effectiveness of NICHD recommended prompt types eliciting greater numbers of details
from children, virtually no studies have examined the extent to which NICHD prompt
types elicit emotional language specifically:
Initial invitation. The initial invitation is designed to focus children’s attention in
a general non-suggestive manner, “Tell me everything that happened from the very
beginning to the very end”, and has been found to elicit remarkable amounts of
information from children (Sternberg et al., 1997; Hershkowitz, 2001).
What happened next? Children’s spontaneous language production to the initial
invitation is followed up via “What happened next?” prompts. “What happened next?”

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prompts facilitate children’s continued description of event details within a sequential
logical framework.
Cued invitation. Cued-invitations highlight individual details children previously
mentioned as contextual cues and invite children to “tell more” about that detail (e.g.,
“You said you [walked]. Tell me more about that.”) (Orbach et al., 2000; Orbach &
Lamb, 2000). Cued invitations’ reliance on material provided by children facilitates their
access to otherwise inaccessible memory traces (Tulving, 1983), avoids the suggestibility
of interviewers referencing undisclosed information (Orbach & Lamb, 2000), requests
elaboration on reliable/salient information derived from long term memory (because the
detail was originally elicited via free recall memory), and allows for children to elaborate
on details available in their short term memory (because children recently mentioned the
detail in the interview). The success of cued-invitations fostering children’s elaborations
of central details have been demonstrated across wide age ranges, including children 5- to
15-years of age (Hershkowitz, 2001; Orbach et al., 2000; Orbach & Lamb, 2000), with
recent research showing that cued-invitations asking children to expand on actions elicit
more details from children than cued invitations asking about people or objects (Lamb et
al., 2003).
Methodological Limitations in Autobiographical Research
There are indications in the autobiographical literature that children might not
have reported much emotional information due to deficiencies in the type of rapport
building and the types of open-ended prompts administered. Specifically, the general
decrease in children’s response productivity may have decreased children’s likelihood of

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mentioning emotional language. Given research supporting NICHD interview methods
increasing children’s general verbal productivity, the extent to which autobiographical
research methods maps onto NICHD interview methods is considered.
Rapport Building in Autobiographical Studies
Child autobiographical studies vary in the types of rapport building administered
to children. Often studies do not document the exact procedures used for rapport building
and virtually none specify using NICHD-based techniques. None of the autobiographical
studies clearly reported asking children about their likes or dislikes during an icebreaker
phase or having children practice narrating a past event during an episodic memory
training phase.
Some studies document no attempts to develop rapport building with children
before asking them to recall any event (e.g., Fivush et al., 2003), other studies that
administered rapport building are unclear in their descriptions of what comprised the
rapport building administration (e.g., Baker-Ward et al., 2005 [“warm-up questions”];
Hamond & Fivush, 1991, [“a brief warm-up period in which the experimenter and the
child got acquainted”]; Peterson & Bell, 1996; Peterson & Biggs, 1998 [“the researcher
first developed rapport building”]). In some studies, the researcher told the child a brief
personal anecdote (e.g., Peterson & Biggs, 2001; Peterson & McCabe, 1983 [“One time
my uncle came to visit me, and guess what? He gave me a loony. I was so happy.”]) or
made a general statement acknowledging an aspect of an experience the child would be
asked to report (Fivush et al., 2008 [“I know that having asthma can sometimes be
scary.”]) prior to the interview. It is possible that if children were given the opportunity

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to practice narrating another autobiographical event to open-ended questions, they may
have been more capable and willing to produce more information generally (Sternberg et
al., 1997), which would increase their likelihood of producing emotion-related
information. Thus, extant deficiencies in the rapport building that children were
administered in previous studies could underlie the little amount of emotional language
that children supplied.
Open-Ended Prompts in Autobiographical Studies
A review of the open-ended prompts used in autobiographical studies indicate that
children’s free recall memory might not have been adequately exhausted in such research
due to suboptimal prompt phrasing and premature transitions from open-ended to more
closed-ended questions.
Some studies use arguably vague open-ended prompts. In one study asking
children to recall visits to Disneyworld, children were asked, “Can you tell me about
Disneyworld?” (Hamond & Fivush, 1991), making it unclear whether the question asks
for a generic description of Disneyworld or the child’s experience of visiting
Disneyworld. An examination of study followup prompts also reveal potentially
ambiguous terminology due lack of contextual embedding (e.g., “And then what?”,
“What else?”, “Tell me more about that") (Hamond & Fivush, 1991). The extent to
which experimenters continued to rely on open-ended prompts is often undocumented
(i.e., frequency of open-ended prompts). It is likely that experimenters resorted to closed-
ended questions before completely exhausting children’s free recall memory. Field
research routinely shows that interviewers fail to truly exhaust open-ended questions

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before moving onto to more focused questions (Cederborg, Orbach, Sternberg, & Lamb,
2000; Craig, Scheibe, Raskin, Kircher, & Dodd, 1999).
Thus, children’s failure to produce emotional information during free recall
might be due to poorly constructed open-ended prompts or too few open-ended prompts
being administered. The extent to which children require free recall or more explicit
inquiries to provide emotional information is unknown given the lack of well-crafted
open-ended prompts and non-exhaustive use of open-ended prompts among most of the
autobiographical research.
Interventions Increasing Children’s Use of Emotional Language
Emotional Rapport Building
Although the NICHD Protocol provides a rapport building method shown to
increase the amount of reliable information children produce, no one has examined
children’s use of emotional information during NICHD rapport building. The fact that
the NICHD Protocol asks children about so-called neutral events (i.e., birthday,
yesterday) may not necessarily promote children’s use of emotional language. Moreover,
proponents of the NICHD Protocol acknowledge that the Protocol does not adequately
address issues of reluctance preventing children’s disclosures (e.g., Hershkowitz, 2009).
Mechanisms through which emotional rapport building might increase
emotional language. Emotional rapport building, defined as asking children to report
emotional events during the rapport building phase of an interview, may increase their
use of spontaneous emotional language through three mechanisms: increasing children’s
awareness of emotional associations to events, increasing children’s perceived self-

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efficacy to report emotional information, particularly with respect to negative emotional
information, and allowing children to observe supportive responses from interviewers.
Cognitive reminder. Children’s failure to report emotional language may be
because they do not attend to emotional event details in their recall. To address this
issue, rapport building can increase children’s awareness of emotional associations to the
events they are reporting. Specifically, asking children to report emotional events during
rapport building may cue children’s memory for emotional information. It is possible
that children would report more emotional content when recalling emotional events than
when recalling non-emotional events, which should heighten awareness of emotional
associations when asked to describe other events.
Mood congruent memory theory offers an analogy. According to mood congruent
memory theory, the reinstatement of emotions experienced during an incident may foster
the retrieval of event details (Bower, 1981; Bower & Cohen, 1982) through increasing
the similarity between participants’ experience at encoding and retrieval. For instance,
some researchers have proposed that if adults were sad at time of recall, they would recall
more material they learned earlier when they were sad at the encoding episode (Bower,
Monteiro, & Gilligan, 1978; Gilligan & Bower, 1978). Some research reports that
preschoolers who re-enacted their emotional experience of an event reported more details
about the event than children who did not re-enact their emotional experience (Liwag &
Stein, 1995). Similar to the underlying mechanism behind mood congruent memory
theory, children’s generation of emotional language (rather than the induction of a
matching emotional state, per se) may increase their awareness of emotions which will

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facilitate subsequent use of emotional information when they are asked to describe
another event. Findings from the field and laboratory showing that children can be
trained, during rapport building via open-ended questions, to provide lengthy accounts
about past experiences (Roberts et al., 2004; Sternberg et al., 1997) point to the
possibility of rapport building providing children specific training of free recall retrieval
skills that they can use later in the substantive part of the interview (Orbach et al., 2000).
It is possible that rapport building involving children’s retrieval of emotional information
might transfer to children’s retrieval of emotional information later on in the interview
because children were reminded about emotional information early in the interview.
Self-efficacy. Children’s failure to report emotional language when speaking about
autobiographical events may also be due to an unwillingness to talk about their affect
because they anticipate not being able to manage their emotions. Perceived self-efficacy
refers to how individuals’ judge their ability to deal with prospective situations (Bandura,
1982). People avoid activities that they anticipate will overstep their coping skills and
undertake activities that they expect they can manage (Bandura, 1977). Children may be
reluctant to report their negative reactions to events because they anticipate a failure to
manage negative affect that they expect to experience when describing their emotions.
Two lines of research support that emotional rapport building may enable children
to overcome reluctance to describe emotions by increasing their confidence in managing
negative affect: Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) and
Experimental Disclosure. It is through increasing children’s perceived self-efficacy to

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manage their emotional reactions that might foster their comfort and confidence in
reporting emotional language.
TF-CBT: Exposure therapy. Research on TF-CBT highlights the benefits of
structured practice and preparation to speak about negative events. Similar to the process
of gradual exposure sessions used in TF-CBT, the rapport building phase in the forensic
interview can be used as a stepping stone to increase children’s comfort in reporting
emotional language. During TF-CBT children are gradually exposed to their stressor
over a series of sessions before producing their trauma narrative (e.g., Cohen, Mannarino,
& Deblinger, 2006). During the trauma narrative, children and therapists are encouraged
to integrate children’s thoughts and feelings to create a coherent and meaningful story
(Cohen, Mannarino, & Deblinger, 2006). Similarly, emotional rapport building might
expose children to a moderate amount of discomfort to which they can potentially
witness themselves successfully managing. Moreover, the extent to which children have
practiced reporting on a negative event may increase their comfort and abilities to report
on another negative event which is potentially more aversive. Thus, emotional rapport
building holds the promise to facilitate children’s willingness to report emotional details
through the potential of increasing children’s sense of self-efficacy.
1

Experimental disclosure. Research on experimental disclosure (i.e., the
disclosure of traumatic or emotional events) highlights the benefits of emotional event
disclosure, especially when emotional event disclosures contain emotional content. After

1
Although perceived self-efficacy might be related to the ability to provide trauma
narratives, no study on TF-CBT included direct measures of perceived self-efficacy.
Moreover, no extant research has tested the extent to which preparing children to describe
their abuse is necessary to elicit trauma narratives.

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a distressing event, individuals often experience intrusive thoughts, which can lead to
reluctance to speak about the event (e.g., Lepore et al., 2004; Lepore, 1992).
Experimental disclosure research demonstrates that repeated disclosures of distressing
events might be experienced as a mastery experience (Lepore et al., 2002) and lessen the
impact of the stressor (Lepore, 1997). Research supporting the psychological benefits of
emotional event disclosures is burgeoning (Greenberg, Wortman, & Stone, 1996;
Pennebaker, Kiecolt-Glaser, & Glaser, 1988), especially with respect to the psychological
and physical benefits of incorporating one’s thoughts and feelings in personal reports
about stressful events (Pennebaker, 1997; Pennebaker, Kiecolt-Glaser, & Glaser, 1988).
Emotional expression enables people to confront their intrusive thoughts and
thereby allows them to accept or make meaning of their situation and thus regain a sense
of well-being and mastery (Lepore, 1997). For example, following experimental
disclosure, individuals experience intrusive thoughts about the events with less distress
than they did previously due to their success at meaningfully incorporating the experience
into their personal history, which served to decrease their intimidation by the stressor. In
a recent meta-analysis, experimental disclosure increased psychological health outcomes
that were directly related to emotions (i.e., depression, positive functioning) (Frattaroli,
2006). It is possible that through a similar mechanism, in which the discomfort of
emotional expression is confronted, children’s willingness to disclose emotional
information might increase.
Children’s mood may be dampened when reporting negative events (Murray,
Lamnin, & Carver, 1989; Pennebaker & Beall, 1986) which could diminish the

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immediate positive effects of early emotional disclosures in an interview affecting
additional emotional disclosures later in the interview. However, initial decrements in
positive mood might not preclude children’s willingness to disclose other negative
content. Despite a decreased mood, for example, children’s perceived self-efficacy in
reporting emotional information should still improve. Thus, a key element to increasing
children’s production of emotional language may be that the anticipation of intensely
negative emotions (Cohen, Mannarino, & Deblinger, 2006) is abated after the discovery
of the disclosure being less emotionally difficult than children expected, increasing
children’s confidence to report additional emotional information. Indeed, studies on
adults who were asked to share upsetting emotional events revealed that participants
reported that their experience of sharing was not as aversive as they had expected (Rime,
Noel, & Philippot, 1991; Pennebaker, Zech, & Rime, 2001).
Social support. Another important issue to consider is the extent to which
children’s perception of social support might also influence their use of emotional
language. Children sometimes do not report on aversive events for fear of unsupportive
reactions from the listener (Hershkowitz et al., 2007). This issue may be particularly
pronounced for maltreated children who might expect more negative responses from
adults when reporting on negative events, and especially, when expressing negative
feelings (Shipman & Zeman, 2001).
According to Lepore's Social Cognitive Processing Model of Adjustment to
Trauma, social constraints on disclosure can interfere with adaptive coping processes,
including emotional expression (Lepore, 1997; Lepore et al., 1996). People inhibit

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discussing trauma-related thoughts and feelings to avoid additional negative social
reactions (Lepore, 1992; Lepore et al., 1996; Pennebaker & Harber, 1993) such as stigma
associated with the events (Pennebaker, 1989; Pennebaker & Harber, 1993). The level of
support one receives during the disclosure of aversive events impacts psychological
health (Janoff-Bulman, 1992; Lepore et al., 1996; Rime, 1995; Silver & Wortman, 1980;
Lepore, Ragan, & Jones, 2000). Indeed, the benefits of talking about stressful
experiences are increased when disclosures are met with support and warmth (Lepore et
al., 1996).
The demonstration of social support may be a crucial component toward
increasing children’s comfort in disclosing emotional material. Some argue that speaking
with supportive and empathic adults fosters children’s control over their emotions
(Lepore et al., 1996). It is possible that children who describe their negative emotions to
a receptive nonjudgmental listener may be more likely to subsequently report emotional
reactions to that person because they have observed the listener’s supportive responses.
Social support in child forensic interviews. Two field studies have examined
emotional aspects to rapport building in investigative interviews. Specifically, in
investigative interviews of 4- to 13- year-olds, interviewer supportiveness, which
included the interviewer’s references to the child’s emotions, was tied to children’s
disclosure of maltreatment and the amount of information provided within disclosures
(Hershkowitz et al., 2006). In a separate study examining forensic interviews of alleged
child sexual abuse victims, the amount of forensically relevant information children
provided was tied to emotionally supportive utterances that interviewers provided during

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the rapport building phase (Ruddock, 2006). The number of emotion words and emotion
reflections uttered by interviewers positively predicted the total number of details
children reported in their abuse experiences (Ruddock, 2006).
These results are consistent with other research demonstrating the positive effects
of interviewer supportiveness on the amount of information provided by children in the
interviews (Carter, Bottoms, & Levine, 1996; Davis & Bottoms, 2002; Goodman,
Bottoms, Schwartz- Kenney, & Rudy, 1991; Imhoff & Baker-Ward, 1999). However,
neither study examined children’s production of emotional language specifically but
focused on the interviewers production of emotional language. In addition, neither study
experimentally varied the type of rapport building children received but reported on
correlational data.
Emotion Prompts
Mechanisms through which emotion prompts can increase emotional language
use. Due to the substantial amount of research demonstrating that children do not
spontaneously report emotions, it might be very difficult to increase children’s use of
emotional language in their production of spontaneous language. There are indications in
research on question type, that questions which reference emotional content facilitate
emotional information. Research on cued-invitations and how-feel prompts point toward
their potential use as a means to increase children’s use of emotional language.
How-feel prompts. How-feel questions ask about subjective reactions through
prompts prefaced with “how”. How-feel prompts ask children to freely recall emotional

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information without suggesting the type of emotional content (e.g., “How did you feel?”)
as would more closed-ended recognition prompts (e.g., “Were you scared or nervous?”).
Studies have begun to examine the effects of different types of questions on child
witnesses’ use of emotional language (Lyon et al., 2012). Children rarely spontaneously
provide emotional information to questions that do not explicitly request emotional
content (e.g., Lyon et al., 2012; Snow, Powell & Murfett, 2009) but are likely to produce
emotional details when questions reference emotional content (Lyon et al., 2012).
Similar to other research examining question types, children’s responses to open-ended
questions about emotions are longer than their responses to more closed-ended questions
about emotions. Specifically, children report more details to how-feel prompts than
directive or suggestive prompts about feelings. Research on therapy sessions with adults,
reveals a similar pattern, in which emotion content prompts increased emotion
discussions to a greater extent than reflections or restatements, which are arguably less
open-ended than questions (Hill & Gormally, 1977).
It is common for children to describe emotional events without mentioning
emotional information. Children’s exclusion of emotional language may be due to
tendencies to focus on outcomes and actions (Bruchkowsky, 1992; Goldberg-Reitman,
1992; Griffin, 1995; 1992) and the fact that questions may not have explicitly asked for
emotional content. For example, many studies ask “What happened that time when you
were feeling so x?” (Peterson & Biggs, 2001), “Tell me about the time you hurt yourself.
What happened?” (Peterson & Biggs, 1998), “Tell me about a time you felt really
happy.” (Fivush et al., 2008) or “What happened during the game?” (Baker-Ward et al.,

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2005). Thus, it might be important to explicitly cue children to include emotional
language.
In sum, research on asking how-feel questions supports their use as a potentially
effective means to initiate children’s emotional discussions because they cue children to
describe their emotional reactions. In addition, the extent to which children might
respond to how-feel prompts with physical reactions, prompts asking children about their
thoughts can elicit psychological information such as cognitive processes which often are
tied to affect (e.g., “What did you think?”) (Lyon et al., 2012).
Cued-emotion prompts. It is important to consider the fact that “how feel”
questions can technically be answered with a single word (e.g., “sad”). This issue may be
particularly relevant for younger children who tend to answer closed-ended questions in a
very limited manner (e.g., Sternberg et al., 1997). Thus, encouraging children to
elaborate on one-word responses (e.g. “Tell me about that, sad”) may provide an effective
means to elicit greater detail about emotional reactions (Lyon et al., 2012). Research
showing cued invitations elicit substantial amounts of information from children as
young as four years of age, supports the possibility that cued invitations can be used as a
technique to foster children’s elaborations about emotional content.
Cued invitations might facilitate emotional language specifically because
children’s attention is immediately focused onto the emotional content and they are then
provided the opportunity to expand on that piece of information. Although no research
has examined the specific types of information children provided to cued-emotion
prompts, it is likely that children may report additional information about their emotions,

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including other emotion words, desires, affective sensations or associated thoughts. Even
if cued-emotion prompts do not necessarily increase children’s use of emotional language
(i.e., one can only explain sadness using the label sadness) such prompts may still elicit
important pieces of information from children such as what caused their emotions, what
happened after their emotional experience, or what they did during their emotional
experience because emotions are often tied to cause/effect relationships.
Current Study
The research goal was to examine interview-based methods for increasing
children’s production of emotional language. The present study is the first to manipulate
the NICHD rapport building to include an emotional component and to explore children’s
responses to cued-emotion prompts.
Four- to 9-year-old maltreated children participated in either NICHD rapport
building or a modified version of the NICHD rapport building (i.e., emotional rapport
building) and were asked a series of open-ended prompts. This age range was selected
because four years of age is the youngest age at which open-ended invitations elicit more
information from children in forensic interviews (e.g., Lamb et al., 2003) and because
studies have suggested substantial changes in children’s understanding of emotion (e.g.,
Harris, 1983; Peng et al., 1998).
All children participated in interview instructions and the icebreaker phase (e.g.,
“tell me about things you like to do”, “tell me about things you do not like to do”)
adapted from the NICHD Protocol. Children in NICHD rapport building condition were
asked to describe what happened on their last birthday followed by what happened

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yesterday. Children in the emotional rapport building condition were asked to describe
what happened the last time they “felt good” on the playground followed by the last time
they “felt bad” on the playground. In both rapport building condition groups, children’s
descriptions of explicit emotion labels and preferential language were followed up with
cued-emotion (“Tell me more about [emotion]”) and what-think (“What did you think
when [emotion]” prompts) prompts.
Following rapport building, all children completed story stems in which
protagonists encounter positive and negative events. Story stems have been used to
evaluate young children’s spontaneous production of emotion language (Sargent, 1995)
in various types of research (e.g., Bretherton, Prentiss, & Ridgeway, 1990; Bretherton,
Ridgeway & Cassidy, 1990; Meuller & Tingley, 1990), including studies with language
disordered children (Merritt & Liles, 1989) because of the familiarity of stories and the
role they play in development (Astington, 1994). Story stems were selected as the
dependent variable to establish a standardized measure across participants such that
variations in story completions could be attributed to the rapport building manipulation.
All children were asked what-next (“What happened next?”), cued-action (“You
said [action]. Tell me more about [action]”) and cued-emotion prompts (“You said
[emotion]. Tell me more about [emotion]”) to the stories. Children who did not report
protagonist emotion information to stories were asked “how feel” questions (“How did
[protagonist] feel when [climax of story]?”) followed by a cued-emotion prompt.

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Measuring Children’s Emotional Language: Modifying Linguistic Inquiry
Word Count Software
A growing number of studies have utilized Linguistic Inquiry Word Count
(LIWC) software to examine the use emotional language in speech and writing tasks
(e.g., Burton & King, 2004; Frattoroli, 2006; Lepore & Smyth, 2002; Pennebaker, 1997),
including the use of positive and negative emotion words among adult (e.g., Pennebaker
& Campbell, 2000; Pennebaker, Mayne, & Francis, 1997) and child narratives (Fivush et
al., 2007). LIWC was developed as an efficient and effective method for studying the
various emotional, cognitive, and structural components present in individuals’ verbal
and written speech samples (Pennebaker, Francis & Booth, 2001; Tausczik &
Pennebaker, 2010). The words included in the LIWC affect dictionary tap basic
emotional dimensions often studied in social, health, and personality psychology
(Pennebaker, Chung, Ireland, Gonzalez, & Booth, 2007; Pennebaker, Francis & Booth,
2001) drawn from common emotion rating scales, such as the PANAS (Watson, Clark, &
Tellegen, 1988), Roget’s Thesaurus, and standard English dictionaries.
However, computerized emotion language coding methods, including LIWC,
have been associated with over-identifying emotional expressions (Bantum & Owen,
2009). Only 32% of the LIWC affect words were identified as emotional when subjected
to manual coders (Bantum & Owen, 2009). Part of the discrepancy may be due to
LIWC’s inclusion of double function words that can describe physical or psychological
characteristics (e.g., bright, cold, sweet) and are unlikely to be used by children to reflect

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psychological characteristics until preadolescence (Asch & Nerlove, 1960; Nippold,
Cuyler & Braunbeck-Price, 1988; Shecter & Broughton, 1991).
For the present study, the LIWC affect dictionary was modified to more
accurately assess children’s use of emotional language. The process by which emotion
words were identified largely coincided with previous rules for classifying words as
indicators of emotional expression (Ortony et al., 1987) which have been used as a
framework to identify emotion words from computerized language software programs in
recent research (Bantum & Owen, 2009).
Narrative Measures
To provide a complete picture of the emotional richness of children’s responses,
the percentage of emotion words, total number of words, and number of emotion words
were reviewed. The percentage of emotion words was examined to account for
differences in children’s verbal productivity (e.g., Hamond & Fivush, 1991). The total
number of words children produced was examined to measure children’s overall
productivity. The number of emotion words (the percentage of emotion words times total
number of words) was also examined despite being confounded with overall productivity
because the number of emotion words sensitively tests for age differences and has been
used in previous research (e.g., Peterson & Biggs, 1998; Salmon et al., 2003).
Increases in emotional language would be best represented by increases in both
the percentage of emotion words and the number of emotion words. If only the
percentage of emotion words was increased in children’s responses the increase could be
attributed to overall decreases in total number of words. If only the number of emotion

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words increased (and not the percentage of emotion words), such an increase could be
attributed to overall increases in total number of words. Thus, all three narrative measures
(percentage of emotion words, total word, number of emotion words) were reviewed.
Spontaneous Versus Prompted Language Production
Children’s spontaneous language production (i.e., responses to initial invitations)
was examined separately from their prompted language production (i.e., responses to
prompts). Spontaneous language production measures the unique effects of rapport
building condition because it is the child’s response to the initial invitation (e.g., “Tell me
everything that happened from the very beginning to the very end”). Spontaneous
language production is qualitatively different from prompted language production
because it is completely generated by the child. Spontaneous language production might
be considered the most untainted, and arguably the most critical, portion of children’s
testimony because one cannot argue that spontaneous language production was
influenced by interviewer suggestion.
Prompted language production, on the other hand, takes into account the effects of
interviewer prompting on children’s narrations. For example, children’s provision of
different types of information may be cued through information presented in interviewer
prompts rather than independently provided by the child (e.g., “What happened next?”
asks for sequential information; “Tell me more about [action].” guides children to expand
on action; “Tell me more about [emotion].” asks children to elaborate on emotions).
Moreover, children might mention arguably secondary information pertaining to events,

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such as emotional information, later in the interview after they had provided a brief
outline of the event in their spontaneous utterances (Orbach & Lamb, 2000).
Hypotheses
Hypotheses focused on the effects due to rapport building, age, valence and
prompt type. It was predicted that children in the emotion rapport building condition
would report higher percentages and frequencies of emotional language in response to the
rapport building phase and the story stems than children in the NICHD condition. It was
predicted that older children would produce higher total number of words and frequencies
of emotion words than younger children. It was also expected that children would report
lower percentages and frequencies of emotion words to negative than positive events. An
interaction between rapport building condition and story valence was also predicted such
that children exposed to emotional rapport building would exhibit decreased effects due
to story valence than children exposed to the NICHD condition because children in the
emotional rapport building condition practiced narrating a negative event during the
rapport building phase. Lastly, it was expected that children’s responses to cued-emotion
prompts would elicit higher percentages and frequencies of emotion words than other
prompts (i.e., what-next, cued-action, what-think).

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Method
Participants
142 4- to 9- year-olds (50% males) were interviewed. All children had been
removed from the custody of their parents or guardians due to substantiated maltreatment
(e.g., sexual abuse, physical abuse, neglect). The sample was ethnically diverse and
representative of children in dependency court in Los Angeles (57% Latino, 25% African
American, 9% Caucasian, 7% biracial, 2% Asian) (Quas, Wallin, Horwitz, Davis, &
Lyon, 2009; Lyon, Malloy, Quas, & Talwar, 2008; Lyon & Saywitz, 1999).
Materials and Procedures
Recruitment. All study materials and procedures were approved by the Presiding
Judge of the Los Angeles County Dependency Court, the agencies who work with
maltreated children, and the Institutional Review Board. Children who met eligibility
requirements were identified at the courthouse. Children awaiting adjudication or
contested disposition hearings (because they might be asked to testify), children
incapable of communicating to the experimenter in English, and children whose attorneys
objected to their participation were ineligible. Experimenters included two undergraduate
students majoring in psychology and one research staff member with a bachelor’s degree
in psychology.
Assent. Children were approached individually by the experimenter in the
dependency courthouse childcare facility. The experimenter introduced herself by name
and asked children if they would like to be in a study (“when you find out about things”)
about what children say. The experimenter informed children that she was not a social

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14
worker or lawyer but that she was from a school and works with children; that if they
wanted to participate in the study, they would look at stories together and she would ask
questions; that participation was voluntary and that if they declined participation at any
point that that no one would be upset; and that they could ask the experimenter questions
about the study, Lastly, the experimenter provided the research university’s contact
information. Children who assented to participate were asked to sign the assent form. 27
children did not assent to participate, 58 were called by their attorney during the study
and could not complete the task, 5 were incapable of communicating with the
experimenter, and 4 testing session videos failed to record.
Icebreaker. After introducing the children to the video equipment, the
experimenter administered interview instructions (e.g., to correct the interviewer, request
explanations or clarification, and acknowledge ignorance). Subsequent to interview
instructions, children participated in a structured icebreaker phase of the interview. The
experimenter asked children about things they “like to do” followed by things they “do
not like to do”. For each topic (“like to do”, “don’t like to do”), the interviewer asked a
cued-action prompt (“Tell me more about [action: playing soccer]”). Both the interview
instructions and the icebreaker phase were adapted directly from the NICHD Protocol
(Lamb et al., 2008). Scripted interviewer language is provided in Appendix A.
Rapport building administration. Children were randomly assigned to one of two
rapport building conditions. Children in the emotional rapport building condition (n =
71) were asked about the last time they felt good on the playground followed by the last

38
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time they felt bad on the playground. Children in the NICHD rapport building condition
(n = 71) were asked about their last birthday party and what happened yesterday.
Prompt administration. The initial invitation children received for each rapport
building topic was “Tell me everything that happened from the very beginning to the very
end”. The subsequent prompt administration followed the same procedure across rapport
building conditions. What-next (“What happened next?”) and cued-action (“Tell me
more about [action]”) prompts were asked alternatively. For every emotional language
word children uttered during rapport building, they were immediately asked a cued-
emotion (“Tell me more about [emotion]”) and what-think prompt (“What did you think
when [emotion]”). After children responded to cued-emotion and what-think prompts, the
experimenter resumed asking cued-action and what-next prompts. Experimenters timed
children’s participation in rapport building, ensuring that all children spent a total of three
minutes during the rapport building phase (i.e., 90 seconds per event topic).
Emotional language. Emotional word utterances were defined as children’s
references to emotion states and preferences. Emotion state utterances included: (a)
explicit emotion labels including references to people (I was happy), things (It was a
happy movie) or events (It was sad when he left), (b) phrases that included the word
“feel” and (c) emotion signaling facial display utterances (cry, laugh, smile). Desire and
preference utterances included references to “like”, “love”, “hate”, and “want” (e.g., I
liked my cake, I love my bike, I hate monkeys, I wanted to get out of there).
Back-up prompts. A series of structured back-up prompts was used to
systematically respond to children’s non-responsiveness (e.g., “I don’t know”, “I don’t

39
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remember”, “That’s all”). During the “like to do” and “don’t like to do” topics, back-up
prompts included: (a) repetition of the initial question (“Tell me about things you like
do”), (b) narrowing the topic (“Tell me about things you like to do outside.”), and (c)
indicating the experimenter’s desire to know more about the child (“It’s really important
to me to know about you [name]. Tell me about what you like to do.”). During the
rapport building phase, the experimenter used a similar series of structured back-ups
when children were unresponsive to initially describe events: (a) focusing on actions
(e.g., “[Name] what did you do the last time you felt really good on the playground?”),
(b) narrowing the topic (e.g., “[Name] tell me about the last time you felt really good on
the playground with other kids.”), and (c) indicating to children the experimenter’s desire
to know about them (e.g., “It’s really important to me to know about you [name].”).
Pausing. When trying to elicit children’s initial narrative about the rapport
building events (Tell me everything that happened form the beginning to the end)
interviewers waited for four seconds before asking each back-up prompt. Experimenters
waited for two seconds before repeating the question for all other prompts (what-next,
cued-action, cued-emotion, what-think).
Story administration. Subsequent to rapport building, children were presented
four story stems. Children were told “Let’s make up some stories about these pictures I
have. Tell you what, I’ll start a story about the pictures and you finish it!” Children were
then presented the story stems using a laptop Powerpoint presentation. Stories included
two events designed to elicit positive reactions from the protagonist which were
developed by the researchers (getting a present, winning a race) and two events designed

40
14
to elicit negative reactions from the protagonist (scraping a knee, spilling juice) which
were adapted from the MacArthur Story-Stem Battery (MSSB) (Bretherton et al., 1990).
Positive and negative stories were presented in an alternating order which was
counterbalanced between subjects. Protagonist gender was balanced across story
valence. All characters were racially ambiguous and displayed no facial expressions.
Story scripts were brief and contained no emotional language. An example of a
positive story stem is, “A mommy, daddy and their kids, Ashley and Jason, go to the pet
store. At the store there is a bird and a furry puppy. Jason gets a present. Jason opens his
present!” An example of a negative story stem is, “A mommy, daddy and their kids, Sean
and Kimberly, go to the park. At the park there is a swing set and a high rock. Sean
climbs the rock and Sean falls down!”
In order to immediately engage children’s participation the experimenter asked
children to state character names at the beginning of each story (“And what is his
name?”). To maintain children’s attention for each story, the experimenter stated
children’s name before every question and pointed to story stimuli as story characters and
objects were stated.
Initial and follow-up story prompts. All children received what-next, cued-action
and cued-emotion-protagonist and what-think-protagonist prompts for every story.
Specifically, following the presentation of each story stem, children were asked an initial
what-next prompt. After the initial what-next prompt children were asked one what-next
prompt, two cued-action prompts, up to three cued-emotion prompts and one what-think
prompt. Children who did not mention protagonist emotion to what-next and cued-action

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14
prompts, were asked how-feel prompts (“How did [protagonist] feel when [climax of
story]?”). All children were asked cued-emotion and what-think prompts regarding the
protagonist.
Children received up to two additional cued-emotion prompts when they
mentioned explicit emotion labels or preferential language to the what-next and cued-
action prompts. A specified order was used to followup on children’s emotional
utterances. Explicit emotion label utterances were followed up on first (starting with
emotion utterances pertaining to the protagonist) and desire/like utterances were followed
up second.
Experimenter training. The experimenters and author met weekly to review video
recordings in order to ensure uniformity of story stem administration (e.g., interviewer
tone, pacing). Specifically, experimenters were trained to maintain the same interested
tone for every story they presented in order to avoid potentially indicating the emotional
response of the protagonist. Experimenters used facilitators (“uh huh”, “ok”) throughout
the entire testing session.
Transcription
Children’s utterances during the testing session were transcribed verbatim by
undergraduate research assistants. Transcribers reviewed DVDs multiple times to
capture the exact language children used. A second research assistant reviewed the
completed transcript along with the video to verify accuracy ensuring each transcript
contained the exact same language as the video.

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The verbatim transcripts were scrubbed to remove non-informative utterances
using guidelines by Poole & Dickinson (2000). Transcript scrubbing included flagging
non-informative utterances provided by the child: (a) off-topic information of text that
contributed no relevant data (e.g., off-topic comments such as “Can I touch that?”); (b)
false starts (i.e., off-topic information commonly appearing at the beginning of a sentence
and characterized by repetitive phrases and words (e.g., ah, but, well, like, um)); (c)
repeated words and phrases (e.g., “He went, he went to the store”) (d) inaudible language,
(e) fillers or non-fluencies which are meaningless utterances (e.g., “you know”, “We
went, I mean, to the store”, “We went, I don’t know, to the store”, “we went, like, to the
store”) and (f) statements reflecting the child’s current emotional state or frame of mind
rather than the emotional state or frame of mind pertaining to the topic at hand (e.g., “I
am bored”). Children’s non-informative responses comprised a small portion of their
total number of words (M = .11, SD = .04) and were excluded from all analyses.
Titles such as “The Brave and the Beautiful”, “Fear Factor”, “Star Wars” were
transcribed as one word so the software programs would count the title as a single word
and not calculate any emotion words used as part of a title into the emotion word
measure. In addition, children’s colloquial phrases of “happy birthday” (n = 12) were
flagged in order to be excluded from the Modified LIWC dictionary to be described
below.
Coding
For ease of study administration, interviewers were trained to followup on explicit
emotion labels, “feel x” phrases, and preferential language (“like”, “hate”, “love”,

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“want”). For purposes of coding children’s emotional language, the definition of
emotional language was broadened to include utterances reflecting subjective reactions
more generally (e.g., award, cheat, hope, punish).
Modified LIWC Dictionary for Emotional Language
Due to the fact that many LIWC affect dictionary terms could describe objects
rather than a person’s subjective reactions, each LIWC affect term was identified as
either ambiguous (words which could be used to describe objects) or emotional (words
which could be used to describe subjective reactions).
Each term in the LIWC affect dictionary was transformed into its active form
(e.g., relaxed  relax) and then subjected to a two question “object” test: “Can an object
do x?” (e.g., “Can an object relax?”) and “Can an object be x’d” (e.g., “Can an object be
relaxed?”). Words were classified as emotional if “no” to either of the questions (e.g.,
fear). Words were classified as ambiguous if “yes” to both questions (e.g., cool). See
Appendix B for details. We were over-inclusive in the number of emotion words in order
to capture any possibility of children using words to reflect subjective reactions.
Specifically, words most likely not to be used as emotional by children were excluded
(“no’s” to both questions) whereas words that might have been used by children to
indicate subjective reactions were included (“no” to one question). Two coders then
independently categorized LIWC affect words as ambiguous or emotional. Intercoder
agreement was .89.

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Manual Coding: “Like” and “Feel”
Child responses containing the word “like” were identified and subsequently
reviewed. All of children’s “like” utterances were manually examined to distinguish
preferential uses of “like” (I like my dog, I like to go play) from non-preferential uses of
the word “like” (It was like ten feet tall). Preferential use of “like” was defined as the
word “like” used as a verb following an actor (I like my dog). Non-preferential use of
“like” was defined as the word “like” used as a comparison following a verb (I was like a
friend to her). Only preferential uses of “like” were included in the modified emotional
language dictionary.
Due to the fact that ambiguous words could be used to reference emotions if
uttered jointly with the word “feel” (e.g., “I felt good” versus “the cake was good”), child
responses containing the word “feel” were identified to ensure the inclusion of “feel
[ambiguous]” utterances in the modified emotional language dictionary.
Emotional Language Variable
The number of emotion words children uttered was calculated by summing the
frequencies of words children produced identified in the Modified LIWC affect
dictionary (e.g., explicit emotion labels, emotion signaling facial behaviors, subjective
reactions), manually coded preferential “like” and manually coded “feel [ambiguous]”
words.

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Results
Analytical Overview
The results comprise several sections. First, preliminary analyses examined
comparability between rapport building groups for children’s baserate use of emotional
language and the use of open-ended prompts during the rapport building phase. Second,
children’s rapport building phase responses were examined separately for spontaneous
and prompted language production. For children in the emotional rapport building
condition additional analyses investigated effects due to rapport building event valence
(“last time felt good” versus “last time felt bad”). Third, children’s story phase responses
were examined separately for spontaneous and prompted language production. A separate
analysis was conducted on children’s responses to how-feel prompts. Story valence
(positive, negative) was considered in all story phase analyses.
There were no main effects or interactions due to gender, ethnicity or interviewer.
Thus, gender, ethnicity, and interviewer were excluded from all analyses.
Preliminary Analyses
Rapport Building Group Comparability Prior to Study Manipulation
To verify rapport building condition group comparability on their baserate
production of the percentage of emotion words, total number of words, and number of
emotion words, children’s responses to the icebreaker phase were examined (“like to do”,
“don’t like to do”). The means and standard deviations children produced to the
icebreaker phase are displayed in Table 1. Independent sample t-tests comparing

46
14
differences between each icebreaker prompt and across the icebreaker prompts revealed
no significant differences between the rapport building conditions.

47
Table 1

Means (Standard Deviations) to Icebreaker Prompts

Emotional Rapport

NICHD Rapport

Mean

% Emo.
Words
No. Total
Words
No. Emo.
Words
% Emo.
Words
No. Total
Words
No. Emo.
Words
% Emo.
Words
No. Total
Words
No. Emo.
Words
Positive Topics

“Tell me about things
you like to do” 23 (17) 17.57 (16.73) 3.42 (3.21) 22 (15) 14.93 (13.38) 2.77 (2.39) 22 (16) 16.26 (15.16) 3.10 (2.84)

“Tell me more about
[action]” 14 (17) 21.51 (22.79) 2.07 (2.75) 10 (11) 22.63 (20.50) 1.48 (1.57) 12 (14) 22.07 (21.62) 1.78 (2.26)

Collapsed 17 (14) 39.08 (37.39) 5.49 (5.33) 14 (11) 37.56 (30.94) 4.25 (3.38) 16 (12) 38.33 (34.23) 4.87 (4.49)

Negative Topics

“Tell me about things
you do not like to do” 21 (20) 15.51 (13.28) 2.86 (2.81) 19 (19) 20.10 (25.87) 2.62 (2.63) 20 (19) 17.79 (20.58) 2.74 (2.72)

“Tell me more about
[action]” 11 (16) 20.72 (28.03) 1.58 (2.32) 10 (09) 21.46 (24.54) 1.68 (1.76) 10 (13) 21.09 (26.27) 1.63 (2.05)

Collapsed 15 (13) 36.24 (36.90) 4.44 (4.46) 14 (10) 41.56 (47.32) 4.19 (3.77) 15 (12) 38.88 (42.33) 4.37 (4.12)

Both Topics
Collapsed 15 (08) 75.32 (66.48) 9.93 (9.15) 14 (07) 79.13 (75.74) 8.55 (5.96) 15 (08) 77.21 (71.00) 9.24 (7.73)
48

47

Rapport Building Groups Comparability for Open-Ended Prompts
The comparability of emotion and NICHD rapport building groups for the number
of prompts administered was reviewed. Paired t-tests revealed no significant differences
in the number of what-next, cued-action, cued-emotion, what-think or total number of
prompts between the rapport building conditions.
Rapport Building Phase
Spontaneous Rapport Building Responses
The first area of interest was to examine effects due to rapport building condition
and age on children’s spontaneous responses, which included their response to the initial
prompt they received for each event (“Tell me everything that happened from the very
beginning to the very end”). It was expected that children in the emotion rapport building
condition would produce higher percentages of emotional language and more emotion
words than children in the NICHD rapport building condition. It was also expected that
older children would produce more total words and more emotion words than younger
children. The means and standard deviations children produced in their spontaneous
language responses during the rapport building phase are displayed in Table 2.
49

47
Table 2
Effects of Rapport Condition and Age on Rapport Spontaneous Language Production:
Means (Standard Deviations)
Emotion NICHD Mean
Age
Group
%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
4-5

11
(12)
41.04
(36.71)
2.54
(2.67)
5
(5)
53.08
(62.76)
1.79
(2.12)
8
(9)
47.06
(51.23)
2.17
(2.42)

6-7

9
(9)
50.95
(49.75)
3.29
(3.12)
5
(4)
71.21
(65.15)
3.17
(2.44)
7
(7)
60.87
(58.08)
3.23
(2.78)

8-9

8
(6)
68.88
(63.56)
4.08
(3.61)
5
(6)
116.58
(181.42)
3.41
(5.07)
7
(6)
92.73
(136.62)
3.75
(4.37)

Mean

9
(9)
53.63
(51.78)
3.31
(3.18)
5
(5)
80.42
(119.06)
2.79
(3.51)
7
(8)
66.93
(92.25)
3.05
(3.34)

Separate 2 (rapport building: emotion, NICHD) X 3 (age category: 4-5, 6-7, 8-9)
analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted for each narrative measure: the
percentage of emotion words, total number of words, and number of emotion words.
Percentage of emotion words. For the percentage of emotion words it was
expected that children in the emotion condition would produce a greater percentage of
emotion words than children in the NICHD condition.
Only a main effect due to rapport building condition emerged, F (1, 137) = 9.22,
p < .001, η
p
2
= .06, indicating that children in the emotion rapport building condition
produced a higher percentage of emotion words (M = .09, SD = .09) than children in the
NICHD rapport building condition (M = .05, SD = .05). Figure 1 visually displays the
percentage of emotional language children produced in their spontaneous (and prompted)
utterances during rapport.
50

47
Total number of words. Only a main effect due to age, F (2, 137) = 3.21, p =
.04, η
p
2
= .05 emerged. A separate ANOVA was conducted with age category entered as
the independent variable, revealing that the 8- to 9-year-olds (M = 93.73, SD = 136.62)
provided higher total numbers of words than 4- to 5-year-olds (M = 47.10, SD = 51.23),
F (2, 140) = 3.12, p = .04.
Number of emotion words. No significant effects resulted for the number of
emotion words children used. However, an examination of the means revealed that
children in the emotion condition reported non-significantly more emotion words (M =
3.31, SD = 3.18) than children in the NICHD condition (M = 2.79, SD = 3.51). In
addition, with age, children produced non-significantly more emotion words (4- to 5-
year-olds, M = 2.17 (2.42); 6- to 7-year-olds, M = 3.23, SD = 2.78; 8- to 9-year-olds, M
= 3.75, SD = 4.35).
Emotional Rapport Building Event Valence for Spontaneous Language
Another area of interest was to examine effects due to event valence on children’s
spontaneous rapport building responses in the emotion condition. It was expected that
children in the emotion rapport building condition would produce lower percentages of
emotion words and fewer emotion words in response to the negative than positive event
events. The means and standard deviations children produced in their spontaneous
responses to the positive and negative emotional rapport building events are displayed in
Table 3.

51

47
Table 3
Effects of Event Valence and Age on Spontaneous Language Production Among Children
in Emotional Rapport Building (n = 71): Means (Standard Deviations)

Last time felt good

Last time felt bad

Both Topics

Age
%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words

4-5

16
(23)
23.71
(23.63)
1.41
(1.41)
10
(15)
17.33
(16.35)
1.33
(2.08)
11
(12)
41.04
(36.71)
2.54
(2.67)

6-7

10
(10)
33.83
(37.18)
2.25
(1.98)
08
(10)
17.12
(19.27)
1.50
(2.13)
9
(9)
50.96
(49.76)
3.29
(3.13)

8-9

9
(7)
40.08
(42.27)
3.21
(3.41)
04
(8)
28.79
(36.84)
1.04
(1.37)
8
(6)
68.88
(63.56)
4.08
(3.61)

Mean

12
(15)
32.54
(35.41)
2.29
(2.50)
07
(11)
21.08
(26.02)
1.29
(1.87)
9
(9)
53.63
(51.78)
3.31
(3.18)

Separate mixed model ANOVAs, with age category (4-5, 6-7, 8-9) as the
between-subjects factor and event valence (positive, negative) as the within-subjects
factor, were conducted on the percentage of emotion words, the total number of words,
and the number of emotion words that children produced during their initial responses to
the rapport building events (“Tell me everything that happened”) for children in the
emotional rapport building condition.
Percentage of emotion words. No significant effects due to age or valence
resulted. However, a non-significant difference emerged for event valence, F (1, 68) =
3.52, p = .07, η
p
2
= .05, indicating that children reported a higher percentage of emotion
words to the positive (M = .12, SD = .15) than negative (M = .07, SD = .11) events.
52

47
Total number of words. Only a main effect due to valence emerged, F (1, 69) =
7.91, p = .006, η
p
2
= .10, indicating that children provided more words to the positive (M
= 32.54, SD = 35.41) than to the negative (M = 21.08, SD = 26.01) event.
Number of emotion words. There were no main effects due to age. However, a
main effect due to valence emerged, F (1, 69) = 10.14, p = .002, η
p
2
= .13, indicating
that children provided more emotion words to the positive event (M = 2.29, SD = 2.50)
than to the negative event (M = 1.29, SD = 1.87). An interaction between valence and
age category also emerged, F (2, 69) = 3.83, p = .03, η
p
2
= .10.
To examine the valence X age category interaction paired t-tests were conducted
for each age group comparing the number of emotion words children spontaneously
produced to the positive event versus the negative event. A significant difference
between positive (M = 3.21, SD = 3.41) and negative (M = 1.04, SD = 1.37) events
emerged for the 8- to 9-year-olds, t (23) = 2.91, p = .008. Although there were no
significant differences between positive and negative events for the younger two age
groups, the means were in the predicted direction, with 4- to 5-year-olds producing non-
significantly more emotion words to positive (M = 1.41, SD = 1.41) than negative (M =
1.33, SD = 2.08) and with 6- to 7-year-olds producing non-significantly more emotion
words to positive (M = 2.25, SD = 1.98) than negative events (M = 1.50, SD = 2.13).
Prompted Rapport Building Responses
The second area of interest was to examine children’s prompted responses during
the rapport building phase (i.e., children responses to the what-next, cued-action, cued-
emotion, and what-think prompts). Similar to children’s spontaneous rapport building
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47
responses, we expected effects due to rapport building condition and age, with children in
the emotional rapport building condition producing higher percentages of emotional
language and more emotion words than children in the NICHD condition, and with older
children producing more total words and more emotion words than younger children.
As stated in the method, children in both rapport building conditions received the
same prompting procedure. Cued-emotion and what-think prompts were administered
once children mentioned explicit emotion labels or preference words. When no emotional
or preference-related information was mentioned by children, children were asked what-
next and cued-action prompts in an alternating fashion.
Entire sample. In order to examine all the children’s prompted responses to
rapport building, a series of 2 (rapport building: emotion, NICHD) X 3 (age category: 4-
5, 6-7, 8-9) analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) were conducted to examine the
percentage of emotion words, total number of words, and the number of emotion words
that children produced across all prompts. To control for children receiving different
numbers of prompts, the number of prompts children received during the rapport building
phase was entered as a covariate. There were no effects due to age and thus age will not
be discussed further. The means and standard deviations children produced in their
prompted language responses during the rapport building phase are displayed in Table 4.
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47
Table 4
Effects of Rapport Condition and Age on Children’s Rapport Prompted Language
Production: Means (Standard Deviations)

Emotion

NICHD

Mean

Age
%
Emo.
Words
No. Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words

4-5

7
(6)
107.75
(59.07)
7.04
(6.27)
6
(7)
101.21
(49.44)
4.92
(3.40)
7
(6)
104.48
(53.99)
5.98
(5.10)

6-7

9
(8)
98.81
(62.16)
7.96
(8.54)
5
(3)
143.87
(76.72)
7.04
(5.46)
7
(6)
120.87
(72.56)
7.51
(7.13)

8-9

5
(3)
106.37
(62.65)
5.33
(3.45)
5
(3)
107.79
(52.69)
5.00
(3.95)
5
(3)
107.08
(52.27)
5.17
(3.66)

Mean

7
(6)
104.32
(60.57)
6.78
(6.43)
5
(5)
117.25
(62.59)
5.63
(4.39)
6
(5)
110.74
(61.71)
6.21
(5.52)

Percentage of emotion words. A main effect due to rapport building condition
emerged, F (1, 134) = 4.55, p = .04, η
p
2
= .03, indicating that children in the emotional
rapport building condition (M = .07, SD = .06) produced a higher percentage of emotion
words than children in the NICHD rapport building condition (M = .05, SD = .05).
Total number of words. Although no significant effects emerged, an examination
of the means revealed that children produced fewer total number of words in the
emotional rapport building condition (M = 104.32, SD = 60.57) than in the NICHD
rapport building condition (M = 117.25, SD = 62.59).
Number of emotion words. A main effect emerged for the number of prompts
children received, F (1, 135) = 7.44, p = .007, η
p
2
= .05. Correlations with age in years
partialed out revealed that the number of prompts children received was associated with
55

47
more emotion words, r = .26, p = .002. Although the number of emotion words
children produced did not differ significantly between rapport building conditions, F (1,
135) = .75, p = .39, η
p
2
= .005, the means were in the predicted direction with children in
the emotion rapport building condition (M = 6.78, SD = 6.43) reporting more emotion
words than children in the NICHD rapport building condition (M = 5.00, SD = 3.95).
56

47
Figure 1. Percentage of emotion words in rapport spontaneous and prompted
language production.

Emotional Rapport Building Event Valence for Prompted Language
As with children’s spontaneous language production, another area of interest was
to examine effects due to event valence on prompted rapport building language
production among children in the emotion condition. The means and standard deviations
children produced in their prompted rapport building response to the positive and
negative rapport building events are displayed in Table 5.

57

47
Table 5.
Effects of Event Valence and Age on Rapport Prompted Language Production in
Children in Emotional Rapport Building (n = 71): Mean (Standard Deviations)

Last time felt good

Last time felt bad

Mean

Age

%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
4-5

7
(7)
54.45
(31.80)
2.83
(2.47)
8
(7)
53.29
(32.67)
4.37
(4.92)
7
(6)
107.75
(59.07)
7.04
(6.27)

6-7

8
(7)
47.96
(33.29)
3.46
(4.61)
11
(11)
50.88
(40.09)
4.67
(4.92)
9
(8)
98.81
(62.16)
7.96
(8.54)

8-9

5
(4)
57.58
(34.29)
2.54
(2.36)
7
(6)
48.79
(43.16)
2.83
(2.61)
5
(3)
106.37
(62.65)
5.33
(3.45)

Mean

6
(6)
53.33
(32.92)
2.98
(3.29)
9
(8)
50.99
(38.38)
3.96
(4.31)
7
(6)
104.32
(60.57)
6.78
(6.43)

Separate mixed model ANOVAs, with age category (4-5, 6-7, 8-9) as the
between-subjects factor and event valence (positive, negative) as the within-subjects
factor, were conducted on the percentage of emotion words, total number of words, and
the number of emotion words that children produced to prompts in the emotional rapport
building condition. To control for children receiving different numbers of prompts, the
number of prompts children received during rapport building was covaried. No
significant effects emerged. Figure 2 visually displays the total number of words and
number of emotion words children produced in their spontaneous and prompted language
production to the positive and negative emotional rapport building events.
58

47
Figure 2. Total number of words to positive versus negative emotional rapport
building events (n = 71).

Examining the subsample of children who received each type of prompt. An
additional set of analyses were conducted to examine the hypothesis that children would
produce higher percentages of emotion words and numbers of emotion words to cued-
emotion prompts than other prompts. To compare differences between prompt type, only
children who received at least one of each prompt type were examined.
Separate mixed model ANOVAs, with rapport building condition (emotion,
NICHD) and age category (4-5, 6-7, 8-9) as the between-subjects factor and prompt type
(what-next, cued-action, cued-emotion, what-think) as the within-subjects factor, were
conducted. The mixed model ANOVA resulted in a subsample of 50 children, which
included similar numbers of children from each age category (4- to 5-year-olds: n = 18;
6- to 7-year-olds: n = 17; 8- to 9-year-olds: n = 15), and between rapport building
conditions (emotion: n = 28; NICHD: n = 22). No effects due to age or rapport building
59

47
condition emerged and thus these effects are not discussed further. Table 6 displays the
means and standard deviations that children produced on average to each prompt type.

60
Table 6.
Effects of Rapport Condition, Age and Prompt Type on Rapport Prompted Language Production: Means (Standard
Deviations)
What-Next Cued-Action Cued-Emotion

What-Think

%
Emo.
Words
No. Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No. Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No. Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No. Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
Emotion
Rapport n = 68 n = 65 n = 36

n = 28
4-5
6
(7)
13.04
(9.00)
.70
(.84)
8
(7)
12.31
(9.02)
.71
(.71)
11
(7)
17.00
(11.62)
1.72
(1.17)
11
(7)
16.99
(11.62)
.96
(.85)

6-7
10
(13)
11.57
(10.59)
.86
(1.26)
11
(14)
13.25
(7.38)
13.25
(7.38)
10
(11)
21.99
(23.96)
2.22
(2.56)
20
(30)
14.25
(22.53)
1.14
(1.32)

8-9
4
(4)
17.43
(13.35)
.62
(.57)
6
(6)
18.65
(13.95)
18.65
(13.95)
8
(6)
18.21
(16.28)
1.38
(1.30)
4
(5)
11.94
(10.54)
.67
(.97)

Mean
7
(9)
14.03
(11.27)
.73
(.93)
8
(10)
14.84
(10.86)
.93
(.92)
10
(8)
19.06
(17.63)
1.78
(1.78)
14
(21)
12.98
(15.77)
.95
(1.06)

NICHD
Rapport n = 66 n = 65 n = 28

n = 22
4-5
5
(6)
16.99
(15.04)
.63
(.55)
5
(4)
19.44
(13.53)
.96
(1.00)
13
(13)
18.05
(20.39)
1.70
(2.07)
16
(32)
9.72
(8.52)
.61
(.78)

6-7
6
(14)
29.52
(62.27)
1.49
(3.89)
6
(5)
20.56
(14.33)
1.26
(1.57)
9
(9)
24.61
(20.49)
1.67
(1.09)
8
(11)
9.85
(8.99)
.73
(1.00)

8-9
4
(4)
23.41
(22.85)
.80
(.77)
7
(6)
18.69
(18.83)
.77
(.53)
9
(11)
17.83
(15.17)
1.56
(1.88)
3
(6)
8.83
(8.66)
.33
(.52)

Mean
5
(9)
23.50
(39.76)
.99
(2.35)
6
(5)
19.58
(15.46)
1.00
(1.12)
11
(11)
20.09
(18.47)
1.64
(1.68)
10
(22)
9.54
(8.33)
.58
(79)

61

Table 6, Continued
Effects of Rapport Condition, Age and Prompt Type on Rapport Prompted Language Production: Means (Standard
Deviations)
What-Next Cued-Action Cued-Emotion

What-Think

%
Emo.
Words
No. Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No. Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No. Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No. Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
Mean n = 134 n = 130 n = 64

n = 50
4-5

5
(6)
14.98
(12.55)
.67
(.71)
6
(6)
15.88
(11.92)
.84
(.87)
12
(10)
17.47
(15.79)
1.71
(1.60)
16
(25)
11.22
(9.77)
.80
(.82)

6-7

8
(13)
20.54
(45.09)
1.17
(2.87)
8
(10)
17.08
(12.00)
1.17
(1.31)
10
(10)
23.11
(22.03)
1.98
(2.04)
15
(25)
12.49
(18.12)
.97
(1.19)

8-9

4
(4)
20.36
(18.64)
.71
(.68)
7
(6)
18.67
(16.27)
.90
(.83) 8 (8)
18.05
(15.42)
1.45
(1.53)
4
(5)
10.70
(9.63)
.53
(.81)

Mean

6
(9)
18.69
(29.31)
.85
(1.78)
7
(8)
17.21
(13.52)
.96
(1.02)
10
(10)
19.51
(17.86)
1.72
(1.72)
12
(21)
11.53
(13.18)
.79
(.97)
62

61
Percentage of emotion words. No significant effects emerged.
Total number of words. The average total number of words children produced in
response to each prompt type was calculated. A trend for prompt type emerged, F (3,
132) = 2.50, p = .06, η
p
2
= .05. Examination of the means revealed that children
produced non-significantly lower total number of words on average to what-think (M =
10.39, SD = 8.87) than what-next (M = 13.77, SD = 10.22), cued-action (M = 13.69, SD
= 9.88), and cued-emotion (M = 14.20, SD = 12.51) prompts (Figure 3).
Figure 3. Average number of total words to each rapport prompt type (n = 50).

Number of emotion words. The average number of emotion words children
produced in response to each prompt type was calculated. A main effect due to prompt
type emerged, F (3, 132) = 4.76, p = .003, η
p
2
= .10. Children produced more emotion
words on average to cued-emotion (M = 1.32, SD = 1.35) than what-next prompts (M =
.84, SD = .81), t (49) = 2.56, p = .01, or what-think (M = .73, SD = .83) prompts, t (49)
63

61
= 3.05, p = .004, and children produced more emotion words to cued-action (M = 1.05,
SD = 1.00) than what-think prompts, t (49) = 1.97, p = .05 (Figure 4).
Figure 4. Average number of emotion words to each rapport prompt type (n = 50).

Story Stem Phase
Spontaneous Story Responses
Another area of interest was to examine effects due to rapport building condition
and age on children’s spontaneous responses to stories. A carryover effect due to rapport
building condition was expected, with children exposed to the emotional rapport building
condition producing higher percentages of emotional language and more emotion words
than children exposed to the NICHD rapport building condition. It was expected that
older children would produce more total words and more emotion words than younger
children. It was expected that children would produce lower percentages of emotion
words and lower emotion word counts in response to negative than positive stories.
64

61
Finally, an interaction between rapport building condition and story valence was
predicted such that children valence effects would be attenuated in the emotional rapport
building condition. No effects due to rapport building were evident in children’s
responses to the story phase. The means and standard deviations children produced
across their spontaneous language productions to stories are displayed in Table 7.
Children’s spontaneous story responses comprised responses to the initial “What
happened next?” invitations they received for each story. Separate mixed model
ANOVAs, with rapport building condition (emotion, NICHD) and age category (4-6; 6-7;
8-9) as the between-subjects factor and story valence (positive, negative) as the within-
subjects factor, were conducted. No significant effects emerged for the percentage of
emotion words children used or for the total number of words children produced. No
significant effects due to rapport building condition emerged for any of the analyses.

65
Table 7.
Effects of Story Valence, Rapport Condition and Age on Story Spontaneous Language Production: Means (Standard
Deviations)

Emotion Rapport NICHD Rapport Mean
Story
Valence
% Emo.
Words
No. Total
Words
No. Emo.
Words
% Emo.
Words
No. Total
Words
No. Emo.
Words
% Emo.
Words No. Total Words
No. Emo.
Words
Positive
4-5 6 (8) 26.04 (18.87) 1.29 (1.16) 6 (7) 26.29 (22.90) 1.21 (1.25) 6 (8) 26.17 (20.75) 1.25 (1.19)
6-7 6 (7) 38.17 (34.75) 2.25 (2.82) 5 (5) 37.43 (29.89) 1.83 (2.41) 6 (6) 37.81 (32.11) 2.04 (2.60)
8-9 8 (6) 49.08 (39.15) 3.38 (3.01) 6 (5) 47.46 (37.41) 3.04 (2.46) 7 (6) 48.27 (37.89) 3.21 (2.73)
Mean 7 (7) 37.76 (33.06) 2.31 (2.59) 6 (6) 37.06 (31.46) 2.02 (2.22) 6 (7) 37.41 (32.16) 2.17 (2.41)
Negative
4-5 9 (21) 26.09 (20.86) 1.04 (1.22) 6 (9) 23.29 (22.09) .92 (1.02) 7 (16) 24.66 (21.31) .98 (1.11)
6-7 4 (4) 42.33 (33.80) 2.13 (2.58) 3 (4) 39.26 (34.67) 1.48 (1.83) 4 (4) 40.83 (33.89) 1.81 (2.24)
8-9 5 (7) 48.79 (30.80) 1.92 (1.93) 6 (7) 45.58 (30.35) 2.00 (2.14) 5 (7) 47.19 (30.29) 1.95 (2.02)
Mean 6 (13) 39.25 (30.25) 1.70 (2.02) 5 (7) 36.00 (30.51) 1.46 (1.76) 6 (10) 37.63 (30.32) 1.60 (1.90)
All
Stories
4-5 6 (6) 53.67 (38.65) 2.45 (2.45) 6 (5) 49.58 (38.51) 2.13 (1.78) 6 (5) 51.63 (38.13) 2.29 (2.01)
6-7 5 (4) 80.50 (66.11) 4.38 (4.65) 4 (3) 76.70 (60.50) 3.30 (3.72) 4 (3) 78.64 (62.77) 3.85 (4.21)
8-9 6 (6) 97.88 (64.82) 5.29 (4.29) 6 (4) 93.04 (63.30) 5.04 (3.91) 6 (5) 95.46 (63.42) 5.17 (4.06)
Mean 5 (7) 76.79 (60.21) 4.00 (4.01) 6 (5) 77.35 (59.97) 4.04 (4.00) 5 (5) 75.22 (58.49) 3.78 (3.73)
66

65

For the number of emotion words children used, main effects emerged for story
valence, F (1, 137) = 9.58, p = .002, η
p
2
= .07, and age, F (2, 137) = 7.71, p = .001,
η
p
2
= .10, and an interaction between valence X age category, F (2, 137) = 3.53, p =
.03, η
p
2
= .05, emerged. The main effect due to story valence was attributable to
children reporting more emotion words to the positive (M = 2.17, SD = 2.41) than
negative (M = 1.60, SD = 1.90) stories. The main effect due to age was attributable to
the 4- to 5- year-olds (M = 2.29, SD = 2.01) using fewer emotion words than the 6- to 7-
year-olds (M = 3.85, SD = 4.21), t (93) = 2.31, p = .02, and 8- to 9- year-olds (M = 5.17,
SD = 4.06), t (94) = 4.40, p < .001.
The age X valence interaction was examined through paired t-tests comparing the
number of emotion words children produced to the positive versus negative stories for
each age group. Only the oldest age group reported significantly more emotion words to
the positive (M = 3.21, SD = 2.73) versus negative (M = 1.96, SD = 2.02) stories, t (47)
= 3.38, p = .001 (Figure 5).
Although there were no significant differences between positive and negative
stories for the younger two age groups, the means were in the predicted direction with 4-
to 5- year-olds producing non-significantly more emotion words to positive (M = 1.25,
SD = 1.19) than negative stories (M = 1.04, SD = 1.18) and with 6- to 7- year-olds
producing non-significantly more emotion words to positive (M = 2.04, SD = 2.60) than
negative stories (M = 1.81, SD = 2.24).
67

65
Figure 5. Number of emotion words in spontaneous language production to positive
and negative stories.

Prompted Story Responses
To examine effects due to prompts, children’s prompted responses to stories were
examined. The same predictions regarding age, rapport building condition, and valence
were expected but with the addition that cued-emotion prompts would increase the
percentage and number of emotion words produced.
To compare differences between prompt type, separate mixed model ANOVAs,
with condition (emotion, NICHD) and age category (4-5; 6-7; 8-9) as the between-
subjects factor and prompt type (what-next, cued-action, cued-emotion, what-think) as
the within-subjects factor, were conducted on the percentage of emotion words, average
total number of words, and the average number of emotion words children uttered to each
prompt. No effects emerged for rapport building condition. The means and standard
68

65
deviations children produced on average to each prompt in response to positive and
negative stories are displayed in Tables 8 and 9.

69
Table 8.

Effects of Story Valence, Rapport Condition, Age, and Prompt Type on Story Prompted Language: Means (Standard Deviations)
What-Next Cued-Action Cued-Emotion What-Think

%
Emo.
Words
No. Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words

%
Emo.
Words
No. Total
Words
No. Emo.
Words

%
Emo.
Words
No. Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words

%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
Positive Stories
Emotion Rapport
4-5
7
(6)
11.56
(12.09)
.63
(.52)

7
(6)
12.96
(10.60)
.61
(.54)

11
(7)
13.12
(9.21)
1.32
(1.26)

17
(27)
8.48
(6.74)
.63
(.56)

6-7
7
(6)
17.31
(16.68)
.96
(.92)

9
(7)
15.48
(13.96)
1.31
(1.41)

11
(7)
13.10
(9.44)
1.33
(1.01)

14
(22)
9.85
(6.63)
.81
(.79)

8-9
6
(4)
14.56
(9.95)
.75
(.53)

10
(7)
17.24
(12.20)
1.33
(1.04)

13
(9)
17.22
(11.50)
1.69
(1.22)

15
(21)
10.19
(6.84)
1.08
(1.05)

Mean
6
(6)
14.48
(13.23)
.78
(.69)

8
(7)
15.23
(12.28)
1.09
(1.10)

12
(8)
14.52
(10.17)
1.45
(1.16)

15
(23)
9.51
(6.68)
.84
(.83)

NICHD Rapport
4-5
6
(6)
13.33
(9.38)
.77
(.71)

8
(7)
12.01
(8.09)
.78
(.44)

11
(6)
12.44
(7.73)
1.17
(.60)

10
(12)
8.02
(5.52)
.59
(.59)

6-7
6
(5)
15.04
(12.36)
.76
(.78)

7
(5)
17.50
(13.63)
1.17
(.80)

14
(10)
16.05
(12.12)
2.11
(1.88)
13 (9)
11.07
(13.42)
1.02
(.59)

8-9
7
(6)
20.29
(14.37)
1.19
(1.01)

7
(4)
16.15
(8.17)
1.06
(.71)

11
(7)
16.62
(13.76)
1.40
(.75)

11
(20)
11.94
(6.97)
.73
(.57)

Mean
6
(6)
16.24
(12.40)
.91
(.85)

8
(5)
15.19
(10.36)
1.00
(.68)

12
(8)
15.06
(11.51)
1.56
(1.26)

11
(14)
10.33
(9.24)
.77
(.60)

70
Table 8, Continued
Effects of Story Valence, Rapport Condition, Age, and Prompt Type on Story Prompted Language: Means (Standard Deviations)

What-Next Cued-Action Cued-Emotion What-Think

%
Emo.
Words
No. Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words

%
Emo.
Words
No. Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words

%
Emo.
Words
No. Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words

%
Emo.
Words
No. Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
Negative Stories
Emotion Rapport
4-5
4
(5)
11.87
(12.07)
.48
(.90)

5
(5)
13.21
(9.70)
.60
(.53)

12
(9)
13.37
(7.96)
1.28
(.75)
6 (8)
8.58
(5.42)
.42
(.46)

6-7
4
(6)
11.83
(9.29)
.50
(.61)

3
(3)
16.58
(11.27)
.56
(.76)

11
(7)
15.22
(13.39)
1.32
(.85)

14
(28)
13.38
(15.90)
.60
(.59)

8-9
4
(4)
15.27
(12.17)
.58
(.82)

5
(5)
16.49
(9.80)
.71
(.57)

14
(19)
17.24
(14.03)
1.53
(.82)

10
(18)
10.79
(9.84)
.56
(.56)

Mean
4
(5)
12.99
(11.22)
.52
(.78)

5
(4)
15.43
(10.26)
.63
(.64)

13
(13)
15.33
(12.17)
1.38
(.80)

10
(20)
10.92
(11.26)
.53
(.54)

NICHD Rapport
4-5
3
(4)
13.77
(12.03)
.27
(.39)

4
(3)
12.43
(7.05)
.47
(.49)

11
(7)
12.96
(8.71)
1.21
(.70)
9 (16)
9.77
(6.45)
.42
(.43)

6-7
5
(8)
13.78
(10.56)
.50
(.54)

5
(7)
20.66
(18.72)
.70
(.75)

12
(7)
19.47
(23.57)
1.54
(.84)

14
(22)
8.30
(5.07)
.54
(.40)

8-9
4
(7)
22.65
(20.00)
.65
(.83)

4
(2)
20.47
(13.07)
.60
(.40)

11
(9)
17.49
(14.81)
1.31
(.81)
9 (15)
12.21
(7.22)
.67
(.55)

Mean
4
(7)
16.77
(15.23)
.47
(.63)

4
(5)
17.81
(14.05)
.59
(.56)

11
(8)
16.65
(16.79)
1.35
(.79)

11
(18)
10.12
(6.44)
.54
(.47)

71
Table 8, Continued
Effects of Story Valence, Rapport Condition, Age, and Prompt Type on Story Prompted Language Production: Means (Standard Deviations)

What-Next Cued-Action Cued-Emotion What-Think

%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words

%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words

%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words

%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
All Stories
Emotion Rapport
4-5
5
(7)
11.72
(11.38)
.48
(.90)

6
(3)
13.08
(9.58)
0.61
(0.33)

11
(7)
13.45
(7.90)
1.35
(.90)

08
(07)
8.53
(5.67)
.52
(.44)

6-7
4
(4)
14.57
(11.41)
.50
(.61)

6
(5)
16.03
(12.4)
0.94
(1.02)

10
(5)
14.21
(11.13)
1.32
(.86)

12
(18)
11.61
(9.98)
.71
(.59)

8-9
3
(4)
14.92
(10.06)
.58
(.82)

7
(5)
16.86
(10.38)
1
(0.7)

12
(10)
16.78
(10.58)
1.62
(.90)

12
(14)
10.49
(7.04)
.82
(.66)

Mean
4
(5)
13.74
(10.91)
.52
(.78)

6
(4)
15.32
(10.82)
.86
(.75)

12
(8)
14.85
(9.99)
1.43
(.88)

11
(14)
10.21
(7.77)
.68
(.58)

NICHD Rapport
4-5
2
(4)
13.55
(9.85)
.27
(.39)

5
(3)
12.22
(6.97)
.63
(.38)

10
(5)
12.62
(7.41)
1.18
(.57)

08
(09)
8.90
(5.12)
.50
(.37)

6-7
5
(7)
14.41
(10.63)
.50
(.54)

5
(3)
19.08
(15.46)
.93
(.72)

12
(5)
18.66
(20.61)
1.76
(1.00)

11
(08)
9.68
(8.36)
.78
(.36)

8-9
3
(4)
21.47
(15.56)
.65
(.83)

5
(2)
18.31
(10.01)
.83
(.46)

10
(7)
17.20
(12.53)
1.34
(.67)

10
(14)
12.07
(6.62)
.70
(.43)

Mean
4
(5)
16.51
(12.64)
.47
(.63)

5
(3)
16.50
(11.56)
.80
(.54)

11
(6)
16.18
(14.56)
1.43
(.80)

10
(11)
10.22
(6.84)
.66
(.40)

72
Table 9.
Effects of Story Valence, Age and Prompt Type on Story Prompted Language Production: Means (Standard Deviations)
What-Next Cued-Action Cued-Emotion What-Think
Story
Valence
%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo..
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
Positive
4-5
6
(6)
12.45
(10.74)
.70
(.62)
8
(6)
12.48
(9.34)
.70
(.49)
11
(6)
12.77
(8.39)
1.25
(.97)
13
(.21)
8.25
(6.10)
.60
(.56)

6-7
6
(6)
16.20
(14.61)
.86
(.85)
8
(6)
16.47
(13.68)
1.24
(1.14)
13
(9)
14.54
(10.82)
1.71
(1.53)
14
(.17)
10.45
(10.42)
.91
(.70)

8-9
6
(5)
17.43
(12.57)
.97
(.83)
7
(6)
16.69
(10.28)
1.20
(.89)
12
(8)
16.92
(12.55)
1.54
(1.01)
13
(.20)
11.06
(6.89)
.91
(.85)

Mean
6
(6)
15.35
(12.81)
.84
(.77)
8
(6)
15.21
(11.33)
1.05
(.91)
12
(8)
14.79
(10.82)
1.50
(1.21)
13
(.19)
9.92
(8.04)
.81
(.73)

Negative
4-5
3
(5)
12.82
(11.97)
.38
(.70)
4
(4)
12.82
(8.40)
.54
(.51)
12
(8)
13.16
(8.26)
1.24
(.72)
8
(.13)
9.18
(5.93)
.42
(.44)

6-7
5
(7)
12.79
(9.87)
.50
(.57)
4
(5)
18.58
(15.33)
.63
(.75)
12
(7)
17.30
(19.01)
1.43
(.84)
14
(.25)
10.89
(12.05)
.57
(.50)

8-9
4
(6)
18.96
(16.80)
.61
(.81)
4
(4)
18.47
(11.60)
.66
(.49)
13
(15)
17.37
(14.27)
1.42
(.81)
10
(.16)
11.50
(8.57)
.61
(.55)

Mean
4
(6)
14.87
(13.45)
.50
(.70)
4
(4)
16.61
(12.31)
.61
(.59)
12
(11)
16.00
(14.62)
1.37
(.80)
.11
(.19)
10.52
(9.16)
.54
(.50)

73
Table 9, Continued.
Effects of Story Valence, Age and Prompt Type on Story Prompted Language Production: Means (Standard Deviations)

What-Next Cued-Action Cued-Emotion What-Think
Story
Valence
%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
All Stories
4-5
3
(5)
12.64
(10.57)
.38
(.70)
6
(3)
12.65
(8.30)
.62
(.35)
11
(6)
13.03
(7.58)
1.26
(.75)
8
(.08)
8.71
(5.35)
.51
(.40)

6-7
4
(6)
14.49
(10.91)
.50
(.57)
5
(4)
17.52
(13.91)
.94
(.88)
11
(5)
16.39
(16.44)
1.53
(.95)
12
(.14)
10.67
(9.17)
.74
(.49)

8-9
3
(4)
18.19
(13.38)
.61
(.81)
6
(4)
17.59
(10.11)
.93
(.59)
11
(9)
16.99
(11.48)
1.48
(.80)
11
(.14)
11.28
(6.81)
.76
(.55)

Mean
4
(5)
15.11
(11.84)
.50
(.70)
6
(4)
15.91
(11.17)
.83
(.65)
11
(7)
15.51
(12.46)
1.43
(.84)
10
(.12)
10.22
(7.30)
.67
(.50)
74

73

Percentage of emotion words. A main effect due to valence, F (1, 134) = 12.33, p
= .001, η
p
2
= .08, and prompt emerged, F (3, 402) = 27.62, p < .001, η
p
2
= .17. No
significant effects emerged for age. Children produced higher percentages of emotion
words to the positive stories (M = .09, SD = .05) than the negative stories (M = .06, SD =
.04). Paired t-tests revealed that children produced similar percentages of emotion words
to the cued-emotion (M = .11, SD = .12) and what-think prompts (M = .11, SD = .07), t
(141) = 1.16, p = .25. Children produced higher percentages of emotion words to cued-
emotion and what-think prompts than to cued-action (M = .06, SD = .04), (cued-emotion:
t (141) = 10.21, p < .001; what-think: t (141) = 4.54, p < .001) and what-next (M = .04,
SD = .05) prompts (cued-emotion: t (141) = 11.73, p < .001; what-think: t (141) = 5.87,
p < .001).
Total number of words. A main effect due to valence, F (1, 134) = 4.64, p = .03,
η
p
2
= .03 and prompt type F (3, 402) = 19.92, p < .001, η
p
2
= .13 emerged. The main
effect due to valence was attributed to children producing more words to negative (M =
14.89, SD = 10.56) than positive stories (M = 14.19, SD = 9.39) (Figure 9, at the end of
this subsection, displays the average number of total words children produced
spontaneously and in response to prompting to the positive and negative stories). A
series of paired t-tests were conducted to examine differences between prompt types.
Children produced fewer total words to the what-think prompts than to cued-action, t
(142) = 8.64, p < .001, what-next t (142) = 5.95, p < .001, and cued-emotion prompts, t
(139) = 6.85, p < .001 (Figure 6). No significant effects due to age emerged.
75

73

Figure 6. Average total number of words to each story Prompt type.

Number of emotion words. Main effects due to valence, F (1, 134) = 50.80, p <
.001, η
p
2
= .28, prompt type, F (3, 402) = 71.45, p < .001, and age, F (2, 134) = 3.55, p
= .03, η
p
2
= .05, and interactions between valence X prompt type, F (3, 134) = 3.18, p =
.03, η
p
2
= .02, and prompt type X age X condition, F (6, 402) = 2.65, p = .02, η
p
2
= .04
emerged.
2

The main effect due to valence was attributed to children reporting more emotion
words to the positive stories (M = 1.09, SD = .71) than to the negative stories (M = .30,
SD = .26).
To examine the main effect due to prompt type, a series of paired t-tests was
conducted. Children reported significantly more emotion words to cued-action (M = .83,

2
A four way interaction between valence X prompt type X age X condition also emerged,
F (6, 402) = 2.11, p = .05, η
p
2
= .03, which was not interpreted.
76

73
SD = .65) than what-next prompts (M = .50, SD = .70), t (142) = 2.79, p = .006, and
more emotion words to cued-action than what-think prompts (M = .67, SD = .50), t (142)
= 2.81, p = .006. Children produced more emotion words to the cued-emotion prompts
(M = 1.43, SD = .84) than to the other prompts: cued-action, t (139) = 10.81, p < .001,
what-next, t (139) = 12.56, and what-think t (139) = 10.82, p < .001 (Figure 7).
Figure 7. Average number of emotion words to each story prompt type.

To examine the main effect due to age, independent sample t-tests were
conducted comparing each age group. The main effect due to age was attributed to the 4-
to 5- year-olds producing fewer emotion words (M = .55, SD = .29) than the 6- to 7-
year-olds (M = .77, SD = .55), t (92) = 2.38, p = .02, and the 8- to 9- year-olds (M = .79,
SD = .45), t (93) = 3.0, p = .003.
To examine the valence X prompt type interaction, a series of paired t-tests
comparing the average number of emotion words children produced to each type of
77

73
prompt between positive versus negative stories were performed. For cued-action t (142)
= 6.52, p < .001, what-next t (142) = 5.20, p < .001 and what-think t (142) = 4.23, p <
.001 prompts children produced more emotion words to the positive stories (cued-action
M = 2.09, SD = 1.82; what-next, M = .84, SD = .77; what-think M = .81, SD = .73) than
to the negative stories (cued-action M = 1.21, SD = 1.18; what-next, M = .50, SD = .70;
what-think M = .81, SD = .73). For cued-emotion prompts children produced non-
significantly more emotion words, t (139) = 1.57, p = .12, to positive (M = 1.50, SD =
1.21) than negative (M = 1.37, SD = .79) stories.
To examine the prompt type X age X rapport building condition interaction,
separate 3 (age category: 4-5, 6-7, 8-9) x 4 (prompt type: what-next, cued-action, cued-
emotion, what-think) mixed model ANOVAs were conducted for each rapport building
condition. For each condition there was a main effect due to prompt type (emotion, F (3,
201) = 33.16, p < .001, η
p
2
= .33; NICHD, F (3, 201) = 40.53, p < .001, η
p
2
= .38), such
that cued-emotion prompts elicited more emotion words than the other prompt types
(Figure 8). For the NICHD rapport building condition, there was also an effect due to
age, F (2, 67) = 3.20, p = .05, η
p
2
= .09 and an age X prompt type interaction, F (6, 201)
= 2.30, p = .04, η
p
2
= .06. An examination of the means for children in the NICHD
condition revealed a steady progression of increased emotion words produced to what-
next for each age group whereas for the other prompts there was a decrease in the number
of emotion words between the oldest and middle age groups (Table 8).
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73
Figure 8. Average number of emotion words to each prompt type for positive and
negative stories.

Figure 9. Average total number of words to positive and negative stories.

79

73
How-Feel Prompts Story Responses
Separate 2 (rapport building: emotion, NICHD) X 3 (age category: 4-5, 6-7, 8-9)
ANCOVAs were conducted on the percentage of emotion words, total words and the
number of emotion words children produced to the how-feel prompts. The percentage of
stories children were prompted how-feel across stories was covaried to control for the
effects of general willingness to report emotions. Table 10 displays the means and
standard deviations for children’s responses to how-feel prompts. Preliminary analyses
revealed no main effects due to story valence, thus valence was excluded in the following
analysis. No significant effects emerged.

80
Table 10.
Effects of Story Valence, Rapport Condition and Age to Story How-Feel Prompts: Means (Standard Deviations)
Emotion Rapport NICHD Rapport Mean

%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
%
Emo.
Words
No.
Total
Words
No.
Emo.
Words
Positive Stories
4-5 48 (45) 2.90 (2.72) .90 (.62) 48 (42) 3.20 (3.37) .93 (.38) 48 (43) 3.06 (3.05) .92 (.51)
6-7 50 (41) 4.50 (656) 1.00 (.89) 63 (38) 3.55 (7.20) 1.12 (.86) 57 (40) 4.01 (6.82) 1.06 (.87)
8-9 62 (39) 5.69 (9.22) 1.44 (.81) 61 (40) 4.22 (5.60) 1.19 (.57) 62 (38) 4.95 (7.54) 1.31 (.70)
Mean 53 (41) 4.25 (643) 1.09 (.80) 57 (40) 3.59 (5.47) 1.07 (.63) 55 (41) 3.91 (5.94) 1.08 (.71)

Negative Stories
4-5 54 (44) 2.2 (164) .80 (.53) 49 (41) 3.37 (3.49) .83 (.39) 52 (42) 2.80 (2.78) .81 (.46)
6-7 54 (43) 3.12 (3.91) .95 (.67) 67 (37) 2.59 (2.11) 1.09 (.53) 61 (40) 2.85 (3.10) 1.02 (.60)
8-9 61 (37) 360 (4.71) 1.09 (.49) 53 (41) 4.07 (4.71) 1.05 (.31) 57 (39) 3.83 (4.66) 1.07 (.41)
Mean 57 (41) 2.98 (367) .95 (.57) 56 (40) 3.34 (3.59) .99 (.43) 56 (40) 3.17 (3.62) .97 (.50)

All Stories
4-5 53 (43) 250 (1.98) .89 (.51) 45 (35) 3.38 (3.26) .89 (.28) 49 (39) 2.94 (2.70) .89 (.41)
6-7 45 (36) 3.96 (451) 1.01 (.63) 57 (33) 3.17 (4.09) 1.13 (.58) 51 (35) 3.56 (4.27) 1.07 (.60)
8-9 61 (35) 4.05 (5.92) 1.30 (.89) 53 (38) 3.70 (3.86) 1.07 (.34) 57 (37) 3.87 (4.95) 1.18 (.68)
Mean 53 (38) 350 (446) 1.07 (.71) 51 (36) 3.42 (3.71) 1.03 (.42) 52 (37) 3.46 (4.09) 1.05 (.58)
81

80
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to examine several potentially critical factors that
may influence emotional language use by maltreated children. My particular focus
concerned the role of two types of interviewing techniques: a rapport building phase in
which children practice narrating positive and negative emotional events, and open-ended
prompts that explicitly direct children’s attention to emotions. Interview interventions
were based on NICHD techniques due to research supporting their use (e.g., Lamb et al.,
2003; Sternberg et al., 1997) and to ensure intervention adaptability in practical settings.
An age range associated with substantial development in emotional understanding (e.g.,
Harris, 1983), responsiveness to open-ended invitations (e.g., Lamb et al., 2003) and
eligibility to be interviewed with the NICHD Protocol was selected for the sample (e.g.,
Lamb et al., 2007).
Effects of Emotional Rapport Building and Cued-Emotion Prompts
The prediction that children exposed to emotional rapport building would produce
higher percentages and frequencies of emotion words than children exposed to the
NICHD rapport building was partially supported. During the rapport building phase,
emotional rapport building increased the percentage of emotion words used in children’s
spontaneous and prompted responses. Emotional rapport building had no effect on
children’s spontaneous or prompted total number of words or the number of emotion
words children produced during the rapport building phase. Furthermore, emotional
rapport building did not affect children’s responses to the stories.
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80
The increase in children’s percentage use of emotional language during emotional
rapport building compared to NICHD rapport building highlights the possibility that
when talking about explicitly emotional events children are more likely to recall and be
aware of emotional associations to events. The fact that children report so few emotion
words in general when describing past experiences makes any increases in percentage
emotional language use particularly remarkable (Butler et al., 1995; Peterson & Biggs,
2001; Salmon et al., 2003).
There was support for the prediction that cued-emotion prompts would elicit
higher percentages and frequencies of emotion words than other prompt types (i.e., what-
next, cued-action, what-think). During the rapport building phase, cued-emotion prompts
elicited the largest number of emotion words. During the story phase, cued-emotion
prompts elicited the highest percentage and number of emotion words from children.
What-think prompts elicited a higher percentage of emotion words than the other
prompts, but decreased the total number of words children uttered during the story phase.
The fact that cued-emotion prompts were tied to increases in the total number of
words children produced suggests that children report not only additional emotional
information, but more information generally. Emotional elements of events may be
relatively easy for children to elaborate on because of their causal connections to earlier
events which children begin to understand at early ages (e.g., Bretherton & Beeghly,
1982; Hood & Bloom, 1979).
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80
Effects of Age
The prediction that with age children would produce higher total number of words
and more emotion words was partially supported. Very few age effects emerged. During
the rapport building phase, older children spontaneously produced more words, and
during the story phase, older children produced more emotion words in both their
spontaneous and prompted language production. The lack of age differences in
children’s use of emotional language is consistent with most prior research (e.g., Ackil et
al., 2003; Bahrick et al., 1998; Fivush et al., 2003; Habermas et al., 2009; Salmon et al.,
2003).
The extent to which older children produced spontaneously more words than
younger children during rapport building might be attributed to older children requiring
less practice or guidance to begin their narratives about past events. Older children’s use
of more emotion words in their spontaneous and prompted utterances to stories might
reflect general increases in older children’s verbal productivity over younger children.
An age effect may have only been detectable for emotion words because older children
produced non-significantly higher total number of words than younger children.
Effects of Valence
The prediction that children may use lower percentages and frequencies of
emotion words when narrating negative than positive scenarios was largely supported.
Children often used less emotional language when describing negative scenarios,
particularly with respect to their spontaneous utterances to emotional rapport building
events and stories. Post hoc analyses on the icebreaker phase revealed similar effects due
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80
to valence, with children using fewer emotion words to the “don’t like to do” (M = 4.08,
SD = 3.92) than “like to do” (M = 4.70, SD = 4.37) component, t (142) = 1.95, p = .05. In
addition, children in the emotional rapport building condition produced fewer
spontaneous total words to the negative emotional rapport building topic (last time felt
bad on the playground) than the positive emotional rapport building topic (last time felt
good on the playground).
The decreases in children’s verbal descriptions of negative compared to positive
events might suggest reluctance. Children may be less willing to discuss negative events
in general, including their emotional reactions to such events. Some research documents
children’s preference to select positive over negative emotions (Harter, 1983) and,
clearly, the disclosure of negative events can be aversive (e.g., Kliewer, Lepore, Oskin, &
Johnson, 1998). Thus, a topic deserving attention is the extent to which asking children to
narrate negative events during rapport building might lessen their willingness to report
details generally, including emotional details. For example, the aversivity of reporting on
negative events might discourage continued discussion about negative emotions
associated with such events.
No studies have systematically investigated the effects of asking children about
positive and negative topics during the rapport building phase of child interviews (M.E.
Lamb, personal communication, August 3, 2012). The lack of research on rapport
building valence affecting children’s verbal productivity is particularly striking because
the NICHD Protocol recently eliminated the “don’t like to do” component of the
icebreaker phase (Lamb et al., 2008). Reasons behind the removal of the “don’t like to
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80
do” component of the icebreaker phase are not formally documented (M.E. Lamb,
personal communication, August 24, 2010; H. Stewart, personal communication, August
23, 2010). However, practitioners may have held concerns over negative topics
diminishing children’s verbal productivity or compromising child-interviewer rapport.
Given findings that children responded less productively to negative than positive
events in addition to the recent exclusion of the “don’t like to do” component of the
NICHD Protocol, it is important to consider patterns in which the gaps between
children’s verbal productivity to negative versus positive events disappeared in the
present study.
Children’s lower verbal productivity to discuss negative events was overcome in
two ways. First, asking children to continue to speak about negative events through open-
ended prompts increased their responsiveness to levels similar to positive events. This
was demonstrated by the fact that during emotional rapport building, although children
spontaneously reported fewer total words and less emotional language to negative events,
they reported similar numbers of total words and emotional language when prompted by
the interviewer. During the story phase, children produced slightly more words to the
negative than positive scenarios when prompted by the interviewer. Such findings
supplement other research showing that open-ended prompts can facilitate elaborative
accounts from children even when their spontaneous language productions were brief
(e.g., Lamb et al., 2008). Second, when children were presented with prompts
referencing emotional content (i.e., cued-emotion prompts, how-feel questions) they
responded to negative and positive stories with similar amounts of emotional information.
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It is possible that simply asking children to expand on negative emotions will facilitate
emotional information. The effectiveness of cued-emotion prompts coincides with recent
research demonstrating that prompts requesting emotional content elicit more emotional
details than prompts not asking for emotional content (e.g., Lyon et al., 2012). Thus,
although most children exhibited initial lower responsiveness to talk about negative
events, it appears that if interviewers persist in asking children to discuss the target event
or rely on prompts requesting emotional content that reluctance can be overcome.
Lastly, valence interacted with age, demonstrating that the oldest children may
have been the most sensitive to valence. The oldest children used fewer emotion words
to the negative than positive emotional rapport building events and to the negative than
positive stories in their spontaneous utterances. The age effect was unexpected based on
research demonstrating older children’s wider range of coping skills to manage negative
affect (e.g., Compas et al., 1991); making one expect that younger children would be
more likely to exhibit valence differences. However, younger children similarly
produced fewer words to negative than positive topics but such patterns were non-
significant.
Possible Reasons for Lack of Rapport Building Effects on Story Responses
The lack of rapport building effects on children’s responses to stories might be
due to the inherent difficulty in facilitating their spontaneous use of emotional language.
As many previous studies document, children often focus on external events (e.g.,
Bruchkowsky, 1992; Griffin, 1995) and fail to mention emotional reactions in their
narratives (e.g., McDonald & Hayne, 1996). Moreover, when children mention
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emotions, the amount of information they provide is brief (e.g., Hamond & Fivush, 1991)
even extending into older age ranges (e.g., Bahrick et al., 1998).
Several factors might underlie rapport building’s lack of effects on story
responses. Children in both rapport building conditions received some degree of
exposure to emotions during rapport building. Given that the purpose of the study was not
to examine the effects of purely non-emotional rapport to emotional rapport but to compare
emotional rapport building to the current gold standard of interviewing, the NICHD Protocol
was used. The extent to which children in the NICHD rapport building condition were not
exposed to purely non-emotional rapport building likely mitigated differences between
emotional exposures to NICHD versus emotional rapport building conditions. Children in
both emotion and NICHD rapport building conditions were exposed to the icebreaker
phase, which explicitly asks children about preferences, and children in both conditions
received cued-emotion prompts throughout rapport building. Moreover, although the
emotional rapport building condition asked children explicitly to describe emotional
events, the NICHD rapport building topics (birthday, yesterday) contain an arguably
positive event (i.e., birthday). Effects due to rapport building condition might have been
more potent if children in the NICHD condition were not exposed to the icebreaker phase
and cued-emotion prompts, and if the NICHD rapport building topics were truly neutral.
Children might require more explicit emotion cues during rapport building. The
topic of emotional events might not be enough to facilitate children’s continued
awareness to include emotions when asked to respond to another task. Instead, asking
children directly about emotions (e.g., how-feel prompts) or instructing children to
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include emotional information (e.g., “Tell me what happened and how you felt about
what happened”) might increase the likelihood of rapport building having a lasting effect
on children’s increased emotion awareness during subsequent tasks.
Emotional rapport building may not affect children’s subsequent story responses
to the same extent as it might impact subsequent autobiographical disclosures. When
speaking about life experiences, children may have a host of emotional reactions
(Bretherton & Beeghly, 1982) to draw from given the complexity of life events. In
contrast, when speaking about stories, children were responding to relatively simple
scenarios (e.g., spilling juice) to which they might not have as much emotional
information to provide. Life events are also imbued with personal meaning (Fivush &
Baker-Ward, 2005) which might also facilitate the production of emotional information.
Finally, the positive effects of increased emotional awareness might not transfer
to stories because children are no longer relying on the same retrieval mechanisms they
practiced during rapport building. Children’s story responses are likely to rely less on
their event memory or free recall and more on their semantic knowledge about different
types of situations. Hence, children’s story responses may have been attributed to their
script knowledge about the basic scenarios the stories portrayed (Farrar & Goodman,
1992; Hudson et al., 1992).
Limitations
Several limitations within the present study must be considered. Instances of
children’s increased use of emotional language could be the product of children
incorporating language from prompts into their responses. During emotional rapport
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building, children could use the language “felt good/bad” from the initial invitations in
their subsequent responses. Such issues may be particularly problematic for young
children, who are susceptible to suggestive questions (e.g., Greenstock & Pipe, 1996).
To ensure that the increased emotional language that children used during emotional
rapport building versus NICHD rapport building was not due to repetitions of prompt
language, an additional set of analyses which excluded any prompt repetitions were
conducted and revealed the same pattern of results.
The fact that the interviewers were not blind to study hypotheses must be
addressed. Because the interviewers were aware of study hypotheses, they might have
treated children in the emotional rapport building condition differently than children in
the NICHD rapport building condition. However, several factors likely minimized
interviewer bias. The rapport building scripts specified all interviewer language,
including prompts and types of emotion words to be used for cued-emotion prompts. In
addition, interviewers met with the Author to ensure that intonation was similar across
interviewers for the stories (e.g., “TELL me EVERYTHING that happened from VERY
the beginning to the VERY end.”) .
However, lack of interviewer blindness may have affected interviewers’
consistency in administering cued-emotion prompts. Interviewer administration of cued-
emotion prompts was one of the most difficult aspects of study administration because it
required interviewers to listen carefully to all details children reported and to remember
the emotional details children described. Thus, additional analyses were conducted on
cued-emotion prompt administration. Across both rapport building conditions,
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interviewers were equally successful in administering cued-emotion prompts to
children’s explicit emotion labels and “feel x” utterances. However, interviewers’
treatment of preference terms differed across conditions during the rapport building
phase, with lower cued-emotion prompts administration success in the NICHD (50%)
than emotion (78%) rapport building condition. The lower success rates for preference
words was due to one interviewer who failed to ask cued-emotion prompts to the word
“want.” An additional set of analyses was performed on children’s responses to the
rapport and story phases, excluding all preferential utterances as emotional language, and
the pattern of results remained the same. Appendix C provides details on administration
check calculations and procedures.
Another potential limitation is that emotional rapport building and cued-emotion
prompts might facilitate children’s ability to confabulate about emotions rather than
activate their memory for emotions. Prior to being interviewed about a fictitious and a
staged event, school-age children were either trained to use cue cards as reminders for
specific types of information (e.g., setting, people), exposed to cue cards without training
or unexposed to cue cards (Comparo, Wagner, & Saywitz, 2001). Cue card training
increased the amount of true details children provided without increasing false details.
Such findings suggest emotional rapport building should not risk increasing false details,
particularly because the rapport building manipulation used in the current study did not
explicitly request specific types of information during rapport building.
Valence effects did not control for content differences between positive and
negative scenarios. For example, the positive story events were about a protagonist
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getting a puppy and another protagonist winning a race whereas the negative story events
were about different topics with one scenario depicting a protagonist spilling juice and
the other negative scenario depicting the protagonist falling off a rock. Children might
have interpreted some of the events as more intense than others (e.g., winning a race
might not be as pleasant as getting a puppy; and winning a race may not be as intense as
falling off a rock). However, the aim of the study was to detect differences in children’s
general attitudes about positive and negative events. Additionally, the stories used in the
present study were adapted from previous research (Bretherton et al., 1990; Sargent,
1995). Future work could control for story content, by presenting children with stories
that only vary on the valence (i.e., winning versus losing a race; getting versus losing a
puppy).
Another limitation in the present study was that reliabilities were not established
for the process of scrubbing transcripts. However, instructions for the scrubbing process
were very clear and adhered closely to similar procedures used in other studies which
achieved reliable results (Dickinson & Poole, 2000; Poole & Dickinson, 2011).
Field Implications
In forensic settings, there is virtually no structured guidance on asking children to
describe their emotional reactions to abuse. Among the most commonly used scripted
child interviewing protocols (e.g., NICHD, Ten Step, Home Office, Corner House), none
contain prompts designed to ask children about their emotional reactions to abuse
(Anderson et al., 2010; Home Office, 2011; Lamb et al., 2008; Lyon, 2005). On the rare
occasion that children are asked about emotions in forensic settings, the prompts they
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receive are usually closed-ended and suggestive, in which an attorney states to the child
what the child’s emotion may have been (Lyon et al., 2012). The present study was the
first to examine the utility of cued-emotion prompts. The findings provide clear support
that children can produce expansive utterances to cued-emotion prompts, including
emotional information. Moreover, the extent to which children might not generate
emotional information spontaneously, they can be asked how-feel prompts paired with
cued-emotion prompts (“How did you feel?” “Tell me more about [emotion]”).
Future Studies
In forensic contexts children are asked to report on events likely to be personally
aversive and emotionally upsetting. Reluctance to disclose emotional reactions may
occur because maltreated children may not want to experience unwanted affect
surrounding aversive experiences (Greenhoot et al., 2005) and/or they expect
unsupportive responses to their affective displays by adults (Zeman & Shipman, 1999).
The extent to which emotional rapport building might counteract those expectations (i.e.,
foster confidence in making emotional disclosures and provide social support from the
interviewer), makes it a potential intervention to increase emotional language use in
maltreatment interviews. Moreover, the experience of maltreatment is emotionally laden,
rich, complex and personally salient (Berliner & Conte, 1990; Sas & Cunningham, 1993).
Thus, children might be able to recall emotional information surrounding their abuse
experience but need the increased support to make such emotional disclosures. Future
research should examine the effectiveness of emotional rapport building among children
participating in child maltreatment investigative interviews.
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Future studies should examine the types of information children provide in
response to cued-emotion prompts. For example, children’s use of sequential
information (e.g., what a character did after feeling a particular emotion), social
information (e.g., how an emotion was caused/impacted another person), causal
information (e.g., situation that lead to a particular emotion), sensory information (e.g.,
feeling hot when angry), and thought information (e.g., corresponding thoughts to an
expressed emotion) could be elicited through emotion expansion prompts. The
possibility that cued-emotion prompts can elicit new pieces of information after children
have already responded to several other open-ended questions about the same event (e.g.,
what-next, cued-action) would illustrate cued-emotion prompts as another means to fully
exhaust children’s narratives.
Future work can examine how the language used in the cued-emotion prompts
affect children’s responses. Asking children to expand on an emotional word without
contextual embedding might elicit definitions of emotions rather than episodic reports of
emotional reactions. For example, “Tell me more about sad” may promote a definition of
sad (“you cry”) rather than an elaboration of the child’s episodic experience of feeling
sad (“I cried”). On the other hand, asking children cued-emotion prompts that contain
some contextual embedding (“Tell me more about feeling sad after your mom left.”)
might elicit episodic information surrounding emotions.
In the present study the LIWC affect dictionary was modified in order to construct
a more sensitive measure of child emotional language use. Additional analyses can
determine whether modifying the LIWC affect dictionary affected the results.. Future
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studies can also investigate the extent to which other types of analyses may uncover
emotional content, including the manual examination of semantic units (Fivush et al.,
2007), and their correlations with computerized software programs measuring emotional
language (Ortony, Clore, & Foss, 1987).
The present study findings have important implications for children’s spontaneous
and prompted use of emotional language in child interviewing. In legal contexts, child
witnesses tend not to report their emotional reactions, which prevents a complete picture
of the abuse. This study showed that emotional rapport increases children’s use of
emotional language, and that cued-emotion prompts facilitated emotional and verbal
productivity. Both techniques appear to overcome children’s difficulty in describing
emotions underlying negative experiences. Emotional rapport building and cued-emotion
prompts can easily translate into practice in the field.

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Appendix A:

SCRIPTED INTERVIEWER LANGUAGE

Interview Instructions

Introductory language
Okay great. [Name], there are some SPECIAL rules that I WANT to SHARE with
YOU.

Interview Instructions
[Name], if I ASK you a QUESTION and you DON’T KNOW the answer, then just
say, “I DON’T KNOW”
SO if I ASK YOU, “WHAT is MY DOG’S NAME?” what do YOU SAY?
OK! BECAUSE you DON’T KNOW.
[ ] If child is nonresponsive: You would say, “I don’t know” because you do not know..
[ ] If child fails (ie, guess): No. You would say, “I don’t know” because you do not
know..
But WHAT if I ASK YOU “Do YOU have a dog?” what do YOU say?
[ ] If child is nonresponsive or fails: Let’s try another one! [repeat 1st sentence of this
instruction and then read what is below]
So if I ask you “WHAT is my BROTHER’S NAME?” what do YOU say?
OK, because you DON’T KNOW.
But what if I ask YOU “Do YOU HAVE a BROTHER?”
OK, because you do know.
OK! because you DO know.

[Name], if I ASK YOU a QUESTION and you DON’T KNOW what I MEAN or
WHAT I’M SAYING, you can say, “I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN” And I
will ASK IT it a DIFFERENT way.
So if I ask YOU “WHAT is your GENDER?” what do YOU say?
That’s because “GENDER” is a HARD WORD.
[ ] If child is nonresponsive: You would say, “I don’t know what you mean” so I will
ask it in a different way.
[ ] If child fails (ie, guess): No. You would say, “I don’t know what you mean” so I will
ask it in a different way.
SO I would say, “Are YOU a BOY or a GIRL?”
[ ] If child is nonresponsive or fails the question: Let’s try another one! [repeat 1st
sentence of this instruction and then read what is below]
So if I ask you “WHAT is my ORIENTATION?” what do YOU say?
That’s because “ORIENTATION” is a hard word.
So I would say, “Am I standing UP or am I sitting DOWN?”

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Sometimes [Name] I make MISTAKES or SAY the WRONG thing. When I DO,
YOU can tell ME that I am WRONG.
SO if I say, “You are THIRTY YEARS OLD,” what do YOU say?
[ ] If child is nonresponsive or fails: You would say, “No, I am not 30 years old”
because that is wrong.
[ ] If child fails: No. You would say, “No, I am not 30 years old” because that is wrong.
OK, so HOW OLD are you? [if child states her age, skip to next instruction]
[ ]If child fails the question: Let’s try another one! [repeat 1st sentence of this
instruction and then read what is below]
So if I say, “You are sitting OUTSIDE,” what do you say?
OK, so WHERE are you sitting?

[Name] I DON’T KNOW what’s happened to you.
I WON’T be able to TELL you the answers to my questions.

[Name] it’s REALLY important that you TELL me the TRUTH.
Do you PROMISE that you WILL TELL me the TRUTH?
[ ]Are you going to TELL me the truth?
Will you TELL me any LIES?
[ ]Are you GOING to LIE to ME today?

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Icebreaker Phase
Like to do, Not like to do
Only pause 2 seconds after the child gives her statement.

So [name] this is the VERY FIRST TIME we have EVER met and I want to know
more about you. FIRST, TELL me about THINGS you LIKE to DO. If the child did
not respond, ask:
[ ][Name] Repeat above.
[ ]TELL me about things you LIKE to do OUTSIDE.
[ ]It’s REALLY important to me to know about you [name]. TELL me about what
you like to do.

TELL me more about [ACTION].

Now, TELL me about THINGS you DON’T like to DO.
If the child did not respond, ask:
[ ][Name] Repeat above.
[ ]TELL me about things you DON’T like to do OUTSIDE.
[ ]It’s REALLY important to me to know about you [name]. TELL me about what
you like to do.

TELL me more about [ACTION].
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NICHD Rapport Building

NICHD Narrative Practice (1 of 2)
TELL me about your LAST BIRTHDAY party. TELL me EVERYTHING that
happened from VERY the beginning to the VERY end.
Pause up to 4s when giving the prompt/s for the child to start narrative.
Pause for 2s after the child finishes her statement and then ask another question.
Write down verbs, names, objects, actions, emotional/evaluative language.

If the child fails to respond or denies having a birthday, ask:
[ ] [name] WHAT did you DO at your LAST birthday party?
[ ] [Name] TELL me about your LAST birthday party WITH OTHER PEOPLE.
TELL me EVERYTHING that happened from the VERY beginning to the VERY
end.
[ ] It’s REALLY important to me to know about you [name]. TELL me about
what you did on your birthday. WHAT happened?

[Name] WHAT happened NEXT?
Select an action that likely occurred near the beginning of the event.

TELL me more about [ACTION].
Select an action that likely occurred near the beginning of the event.

[Name] WHAT happened NEXT?

TELL me more about [ACTION].
Alternate between “TELL me more about [ACTION]” and “what happened next” until
ppt screen changes.

If spontaneous emotion/evaluative language mentioned, follow up on each word/phrase:
You said [emotion language]. TELL
me more about that.
WHAT were you THINKING when
[emotion language]?

NICHD Narrative Practice (2 of 2)
TELL me about what happened YESTERDAY. TELL me EVERYTHING that
happened from VERY the beginning to the VERY end.
Pause up to 4s when giving the prompt/s for the child to start narrative.
Pause for 2s after the child finishes her statement and then ask another question.
Write down verbs, names, objects, actions, emotional/evaluative language.

If the child fails to respond or denies about anything happening yesterday, ask:
[ ] [Name] WHAT did you DO yesterday?
[ ] [Name] TELL me about what happened yesterday WITH OTHER PEOPLE.
TELL me EVERYTHING that happened from the VERY beginning to the VERY end.
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It’s REALLY important to me to know about you [name]. TELL me about what
you did yesterday. WHAT happened?
[ ] It’s REALLY important to me to know about you [name]. TELL me about
what you did on your yesterday. WHAT happened?
[Name] WHAT happened NEXT?
Select an action that likely occurred near the beginning of the event.

TELL me more about [ACTION].
Select an action that likely occurred near the beginning of the event.

[Name] WHAT happened NEXT?

TELL me more about [ACTION].
Alternate between “TELL me more about [ACTION]” and “what happened next” until
ppt screen changes.

If spontaneous emotion/evaluative language mentioned, follow up on each word/phrase:
You said [emotion language].
TELL me more about that.
WHAT were you THINKING when
[emotion language]?

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Emotional Rapport Building

Emotion Narrative Practice (1 of 2)
NOW, TELL me about the LAST time you FELT REALLY GOOD on the
PLAYGROUND . TELL me EVERYTHING that happened from the VERY
beginning to the VERY end.
Pause up to 4s when giving the prompt/s for the child to start narrative.
Pause for 2s after the child finishes her statement and then ask another question.
Write down verbs, names, objects, actions, emotional/evaluative language.

If the child fails to respond or denies ever feeling that way, ask:
[ ] [name] WHAT did you DO the LAST time you FELT REALLY GOOD on the
PLAYGROUND?
[ ][Name] TELL me about the LAST time you FELT REALLY GOOD on the
PLAYGROUND WITH OTHER KIDS. TELL me EVERYTHING that happened
from the VERY beginning to the VERY end.
[ ]It’s REALLY important to me to know about you [name]. TELL me about what
you did the LAST time you FELT REALLY GOOD on the PLAYGROUND.
WHAT happened?
[Name] WHAT happened NEXT?
Select an action that likely occurred near the beginning of the event.

TELL me more about [ACTION].
Select an action that likely occurred near the beginning of the event.

[Name] WHAT happened NEXT?

TELL me more about [ACTION].
Alternate between “TELL me more about [ACTION]” and “what happened next” until
ppt screen changes.

If spontaneous emotion/evaluative language mentioned, follow up on each word/phrase:
You said [emotion language]. TELL
me more about that.
WHAT were you THINKING when
[emotion language]

Emotion Narrative Practice (2 of 2)
NOW, TELL me about the LAST time you FELT REALLY BAD on the
PLAYGROUND . TELL me EVERYTHING that happened from the VERY
beginning to the VERY end.

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Pause up to 4s when giving the prompt/s for the child to start narrative.
Pause for 2s after the child finishes her statement and then ask another question.
Write down verbs, names, objects, actions, emotional/evaluative language.

If the child fails to respond or denies ever feeling that way, ask:
[ ] [name] WHAT did you DO the LAST time you FELT REALLY BAD on the
PLAYGROUND?
[ ][Name] TELL me about the LAST time you FELT REALLY BAD on the
PLAYGROUND WITH OTHER KIDS. TELL me EVERYTHING that happened
from the VERY beginning to the VERY end.
[ ]It’s REALLY important to me to know about you [name]. TELL me about what
you did the LAST time you FELT REALLY BAD on the PLAYGROUND. WHAT
happened?

[Name] WHAT happened NEXT?
Select an action that likely occurred near the beginning of the event.

TELL me more about [ACTION].
Select an action that likely occurred near the beginning of the event.

[Name] WHAT happened NEXT?

TELL me more about [ACTION].
Alternate between “TELL me more about [ACTION]” and “what happened next” until
ppt screen changes.

If spontaneous emotion/evaluative language mentioned, follow up on each word/phrase:
You said [emotion language].
TELL me more about that.
WHAT were you THINKING when
[emotion language]

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Story Stems

Transition into Target Task
You know what [name]? I’ve got an idea! Let’s MAKE UP some stories about these
PICTURES I have. TELL you what, I’ll START a story about the pictures and
YOU [point to child] FINISH it.

Puppy
1) [Name] Look at this. A mommy, daddy and THEIR kids, ASHLEY and JASON,
go to the PETSTORE. And what is her name? [Ashley, yeah!] And what is his
name? [Jason, yeah!] At the store there is a BIRD and a FURRY PUPPY.

2) Oh! [pause, act surprised] Jason GETS a PRESENT.

3) LOOK, Jason OPENS his PRESENT!

[Name] TELL me what happened NEXT.
If child didn’t respond say,
[ ] WHAT did Jason DO NEXT?
[ ] It’s REALLY important to me to know what Jason did. WHAT did Jason DO
RIGHT AFTER that?

[Name] WHAT happened NEXT?

TELL me more about [ACTION].
Select an action that likely occurred near the beginning of the event.

TELL me more about [ACTION].

If spontaneous emotion/evaluative language mentioned, follow up on each word/phrase:
(1) You said X. TELL me more about that.

(2) You said X. TELL me more about that.

If emotion not stated by child:
How did Jason FEEL when he
OPENED the present?

Follow-up with TELL me more about
that.

End:
WHAT was Jason THINKING when he OPENED his PRESENT?

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Target Task Transition
Now [name] you get to make up another story to these new pictures!

Knee
1) [Name] LOOK at this. A mommy, daddy and THEIR kids, SEAN and
KIMBERLY, go to the PARK. And what is his name? [Sean, yeah!] And what is her
name? [Kimberly, yeah!] At the park there is a SWINGSET and a HIGH ROCK.
2) Oh! [pause, act surprised] Sean CLIMBS the ROCK.

3) and, LOOK, Sean FALLS DOWN!

[Name] TELL me what happened NEXT.
If child didn’t respond say,
[ ] WHAT did Sean DO NEXT?
[ ] It’s REALLY important to me to know what Sean did. WHAT did Sean DO
RIGHT AFTER that?

[Name] WHAT happened NEXT?

TELL me more about [ACTION].
Select an action that likely occurred near the beginning of the event.

TELL me more about [ACTION].

If spontaneous emotion/evaluative language mentioned, follow up on each word/phrase:
(1) You said X. TELL me more about that.

(2) You said X. TELL me more about that.

If emotion not stated by child:
How did Sean FEEL when he fell?

Follow-up with TELL me more about
that.

End: WHAT was Sean THINKING when he fell?

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Target Task Transition
Now [name] you get to make up another story to these new pictures!

Race
1) [Name] Look at this. A mommy, daddy and THEIR kids, ANDREW and
JACKIE, go to a RACE. And what is her name IN RED? [Jackie, yeah!] And what
is his name? [Andrew, yeah!] At the race there is a STARTING LINE and a BIG
TIMER.
2) Oh! [pause, act surprised] Jackie is BEHIND the OTHER girl.

3) LOOK, Jackie GETS AHEAD at the FINISH LINE!

[Name] TELL me what happened NEXT.
If child didn’t respond say,
[ ] WHAT did Jackie DO NEXT?
[ ] It’s REALLY important to me to know what Jackie did. WHAT did Jackie DO
RIGHT AFTER that?

[Name] WHAT happened NEXT?

TELL me more about [ACTION].
Select an action that likely occurred near the beginning of the event.

TELL me more about [ACTION].

If spontaneous emotion/evaluative language mentioned, follow up on each word/phrase:
(1) You said X. TELL me more about that.

(2) You said X. TELL me more about that.

If emotion not stated by child:
How did Jackie FEEL when she
got ahead?

Follow-up with TELL me more about
that.
End:
WHAT was Jackie THINKING when she got ahead

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Target Task Transition
Now [name] you get to make up another story to these new pictures!

Juice
1) [Name] Look at this. A mommy, daddy and THEIR kids, CHRIS and DESTINY,
are at the TABLE. And what is his name? [Chris, yeah!] And what is her name?
[Destiny, yeah!] At the table there are COOKIES and ORANGE JUICE.
2) Oh! [pause, act surprised] Destiny GETS UP from her CHAIR.

3) And, LOOK, Destiny SPILLS her juice onto the FLOOR.

[Name] TELL me what happened NEXT.
If child didn’t respond say,
[ ] WHAT did Destiny DO NEXT?
[ ] It’s REALLY important to me to know what Destiny did. WHAT did Destiny
DO RIGHT AFTER that?

WHAT happened NEXT?

TELL me more about [ACTION].
Select an action that likely occurred near the beginning of the event.

TELL me more about [ACTION].

If spontaneous emotion/evaluative language mentioned, follow up on each word/phrase:
(1) You said X. TELL me more about that.

(2) You said X. TELL me more about that.

If emotion not stated by child:
How did Destiny FEEL when she
SPILLED her juice?

Follow-up with TELL me more about
that.
End:
WHAT was Destiny THINKING when she SPILLED her juice?

Closure
Thanks for talking to me today! You did a REALLY great job!

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Appendix B:
MODIFIED LIWC AFFECT DICTIONARY CODING INSTRUCTIONS
We want to identify words that can be used to describe mental states (thoughts or
emotions). To do this, you'll be answering questions about whether or not an object "can
do x" (i.e., be an actor of x or cause x) and whether or not an object "can be in the state of
x" (i.e., be the recipient of x or experience x). Objects can be different kinds of
phenomena that do not have mental states (e.g., tables, machines, electricity, magnets,
bacteria). In addition, you’ll be asked to write the valence of each word (i.e., positive,
negative, neutral). If a word can have a positive or negative valence, please classify it as
neutral (e.g., “sigh”). If a word can be defined as both a mental-state and a non-mental
state, use the definition of the non-mental state in order to respond to each question (e.g.,
“cool” would be defined as lowering temperature rather than calm).

Verb
form of
word
Can an
object do
this?
Yes or
No?
Adjective
form of
word
Can an
object be in
this state?
Yes or No?
Written example to help you
understand yes/no responses
listed to the left of this
column.
Does the word have
a positive, negative
or neutral valence?
Cool Yes Cooled Yes An object can cool and be
cooled. (yes, yes)

Neutral
Scare Yes Scared No An object can scare but
cannot be scared. (yes, no)
Negative
Enjoy No Enjoyed Yes An object cannot enjoy but
can be enjoyed. (no, yes)

Positive
Envy No Envied No An object cannot envy and
cannot be envied. (no, no)
Negative
Sigh No Blank Blank An object cannot sigh (no). Neutral
Blank Blank Fabulous Yes An object can be fabulous
(yes).
Positive

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Appendix C:
CUED-EMOTION PROMPT ADMINISTRATION SUCCESS MANIPULATION
CHECK

Interviewer success at administering cued-emotion prompts was calculated as a
manipulation check for several reasons: interviewers were aware of study hypotheses and
not blind to rapport building condition, following up on emotional language may be
difficult because it requires interviewers to listen carefully and to remember the various
emotional utterances children produced, and interviewers were provided a non-exhaustive
list of examples depicting explicit emotion labels, “feel x” phrases, and preferential
language examples.
Prior to calculating administration success rate, cases in which children were not
administered cued-emotion prompts for justifiable reasons were excluded. Justifiable
reasons were defined as interviewers did not have enough time to administer a cued-
emotion prompt or more than one emotion word was uttered but only a portion of
emotion words were followed up on. The following steps were undertaken to determine
interviewer success at administering cued-emotion prompts.
Cued-Emotion Words
All cued-emotion prompts were reviewed to identify words that interviewers treated
as emotional. A total of 603 cued-emotion prompts were administered across all children
during the entire task (108 cued-emotion prompts during rapport building; 495 cued-
emotion prompts during story stems). 27 cued-emotion words (CEWs) were identified in
the cued-emotion prompts (24 were emotion words, 3 were ambiguous words). The

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ambiguous CEWs were attributed to interviewers responding with cued-emotion prompts
for “feel x” utterances (e.g, “I felt bad”).
Cued-Emotion Word List
Emotion words: afraid, angry, bored, bother, brave, cried, excited, fun, glad, happy,
hurt, jealous, like, love, mad, nervous, pride, sad, scare, sorry, surprise, upset, worry,
want
Ambiguous words: bad, fine, good
Determining Cued-Emotion Prompt Administration Success Rate
To eliminate the possibility of interviewer error being due to time constraints or
children having produced more than one emotion word, only children’s initial utterances
were examined to determine interviewer success rate.
Children’s responses were searched for any CEWs. Due to time constraints of rapport
building (3 minutes per topic), only children’s spontaneous language productions were
searched for the rapport building portion of task. Due to the fact that interviewers were
allotted up to two cued-emotion prompts per story, children’s what-next and cued-action
responses to the stories were all flagged for CEWs.
Identified CEWs from children’s utterances were filtered to ensure that CEWs
warranting cued-emotion prompts were scrutinized for the manipulation check. The filter
comprised of the following steps. First, CEW non-preferential uses of the word “like”
(e.g., “he was like my teacher”, “I was like let’s go outside”) and CEW ambiguous
utterances that were not paired with the word “feel” (e.g., “When I do bad stuff”, “I be
good at videogames”) were removed from the manipulation check. Second, CEWs which

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were not administered a cued-emotion prompt because the interviewer provided a cued-
emotion prompt to another CEW, were removed from the manipulation check. For
example a child who stated, “I just tried to be happy and play with the things that I like to
play” received a cued-emotion prompt for the word “happy” but not “like”. These CEWs
were therefore removed from the manipulation check because one cued-emotion prompt
was administered.
The final set of children’s CEWs that were examined for the manipulation check
contained 430 CEWs. Children’s transcripts were reviewed to verify cued-emotion
prompt administration success. Interviewer success at administrating cued-emotion
prompts was 91% (391).
Interviewer’s responded to explicit emotion labels, “feel x” and preferential
utterances with 297 (97%), 13 (81%), 81 (72%) success rates respectively. Interviewer
lower success rate on preferential terms was primarily due to one interviewer not
administering cued-emotion prompts to the word “want”.
Cued-Emotion Prompt Differences Between Rapport Building Conditions
Interviewer treatment of CEW utterances between conditions was identified for
rapport building. Across both conditions, cued-emotion prompts were administered to
explicit emotion labels 13 (100%) of the time. Condition differences emerged when
examining cued-emotion prompt administration to preferential words. Interviewer
success rate was lower in the NICHD condition 6 (50%) than the Emotion condition 7
(78%). As stated previously, the decreased success rate for preferential language was
primarily due to one interviewer not administering cued-emotion prompts to the word

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“want”. As stated in the discussion, a second wave of analyses was conducted excluding
all preferential terms as indices of emotional language, and the results remained the same.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract The study examined the effects of rapport building (emotional, NICHD) and prompt type (what-next, cued-action, cued-emotion, what-think) on 142 4- to 9-year-old maltreated children’s spontaneous and prompted emotional language. Children in the emotional rapport building condition narrated the last time they felt good and the last time they felt bad on the playground. Children in the NICHD rapport building condition narrated their last birthday party and what happened yesterday. Following rapport building, all children were presented a series of story stems about positive and negative situations. Emotional rapport building demonstrated some positive albeit temporary effects on children’s use of emotional language. Cued-emotion prompts appeared to be the most productive in eliciting emotional language. Overall, there were few effects due to age. Children often produced less emotional language when describing negative events, particularly with respect to their spontaneous utterances, suggesting reluctance. These differences largely disappeared when children were asked additional questions, particularly cued-emotion questions. The results support the utility of emotional rapport building and cued-emotion prompts as a means of increasing children’s use of emotional language.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Ahern, Elizabeth Carole (author)

Core Title Facilitating children's use of emotional language

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Psychology

Publication Date 11/06/2012

Defense Date 09/20/2012

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Child development,child forensic interview,child testimony,emotional development,emotional language,narrative,OAI-PMH Harvest,rapport

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Lyon, Thomas D. (committee chair), Manis, Franklin R. (committee member), Margolin, Gayla (committee member), Mennen, Ferol E. (committee member)

Creator Email eahern@law.usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-107805

Unique identifier UC11290252

Identifier usctheses-c3-107805 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-AhernEliza-1270.pdf

Dmrecord 107805

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Ahern, Elizabeth Carole

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA