NICHD Investigative Interview Protocol — Prompt Types

Michael E. Lamb, Yael Orbach, Irit Hershkowitz, Phillip W. Esplin, Dvora Horowitz · 2007

The NICHD scheme for classifying an investigative interviewer's utterances by how much they shape the child's response — from open invitations to suggestive prompts.

The NICHD Investigative Interview Protocol is the most extensively validated framework for interviewing children about suspected abuse. A core contribution is its taxonomy of interviewer prompt types, ordered by how much they shape the child's answer — from open, input-free invitations that elicit free recall, to suggestive prompts that communicate the expected response.

Unlike most scales here, NICHD codes the interviewer's utterances, not the child's. Each interviewer prompt is highlighted and labelled with one of five types. Best-practice interviewing maximizes Invitations and Cued Invitations and minimizes Option-Posing and (especially) Suggestive prompts. This makes the scheme a training and quality-assurance instrument as much as a research code.

Domains (5)

Invitation / Open PromptINV

Open-ended, input-free prompt that invites free recall without specifying what information is wanted.

—Curated skill
Cued InvitationCUE

Open prompt that uses a detail the child already mentioned as a cue for further free recall.

—Curated skill
Directive / Wh- PromptDIR

Wh- question refocusing the child on a previously mentioned detail and requesting specific information (cued recall).

—Curated skill
Option-Posing / Yes-No PromptOPT

Yes/no or forced-choice question that focuses attention on details the child has not previously mentioned.

—Curated skill
Suggestive PromptSUG

Prompt that communicates the expected answer or assumes information the child has not disclosed.

—Curated skill
Lamb ME, Orbach Y, Hershkowitz I, Esplin PW, Horowitz D. A structured forensic interview protocol improves the quality and informativeness of investigative interviews with children: A review of research using the NICHD Investigative Interview Protocol. Child Abuse Negl. 2007;31(11-12):1201-1231. doi:10.1016/j.chiabu.2007.03.021

Protocol published in Lamb et al. 2007 journal appendix; public/free. Operational wording here is grounded in Lamb et al. (2007), not reproduced verbatim. Cite Lamb et al.