Providing Props to Facilitate Children′s Event Reports: A Comparison of Toys and Real Items

Three- and 5-year-old children took part in a quasi-medical event in which the child and an adult stranger examined a "sick" teddy bear. Some actions performed on the bear were also performed by the adult on the child and by the child on the adult. Two or 3 days later, children were interviewed about the event in one of three conditions; with real items from the event ( real props), with toy representations of items from the event ( toy props), or with verbal prompts ( no props). Toy and real props were similarly effective in enhancing the amount of information reported relative to the no-props condition. For 5-year-old children, props enhanced both verbal recall and behavioral re-enactment whereas for 3-year-old children, props enhanced re-enactment only. For both age-groups, however, children interviewed with toy props were less accurate than those interviewed with real items or with no props. These findings show that whereas both toy and real props may enhance children′s event reports, for toy props the increase in amount reported is at the expense of accuracy. The implications, for example, for when children are interviewed in applied settings, are discussed.