Centre for Research in Autism and Education (CRAE), UCL Institute of Education, University College London, London, WC1H 0NU, UK.
Division of Language and Communication Science, City, University of London, London, UK.
J Autism Dev Disord. 2020 May;50(5):1509-1519. doi: 10.1007/s10803-018-3700-0.
Research suggests that autistic children can provide accurate and forensically useful eyewitness evidence. However, members of a jury also rely on non-verbal behaviours when judging the credibility of a witness, and this could determine the verdict of a case. We presented mock jurors with videos (from an experimental study) of one of two child witnesses on the autism spectrum being interviewed about a mock minor crime. Results demonstrated that providing jurors with generic information about autism and/or informing them of the child's diagnostic label differentially affected credibility ratings, but not for both children. Implications for how to present information about child witnesses with autism to a jury-highlighting the need for approaches tailored to individual children-are discussed.
研究表明，自闭症儿童可以提供准确且具有法证价值的目击证据。然而，陪审团成员在判断证人的可信度时也依赖于非言语行为，这可能会决定案件的判决。我们向模拟陪审员展示了两段视频（来自一项实验研究），内容是两个自闭症谱系儿童证人之一接受关于模拟未成年人犯罪的采访。结果表明，向陪审员提供关于自闭症的一般信息和/或告知他们孩子的诊断标签会对可信度评分产生不同的影响，但并非对两个孩子都有影响。讨论了如何向陪审团介绍自闭症儿童证人的信息，强调了需要针对个别儿童量身定制的方法。
