Beginning in the 1980s, a number of legal and sociopolitical movements thrust children onto the center stage of the legal arena, fostering unprecedented interest in their ability to recall autobiographical events.

Child victim witnesses, when being cross-examined in adult criminal court, are subjected to a range of punitive linguistic strategies. The meaning and essence of their own experiences are systematically denied. Credibility is reduced and all problems are made, as in soap operas, personal rather than systemic or social.

Children have a right to justice and their evidence is essential if society is to protect their interests and deal effectively with those who would harm them.

The demonstrable fact that investigative interviews with young children can be rendered worthless by inept practice should not blind us to the substantial literature demonstrating that reliable information can be elicited from young children who are competently interviewed, however.