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Running Head: PSYCHOMETRICS OF ANATOMICAL DOLLS 1

PSYCHOMETRICS OF ANATOMICAL DOLLS 3

Psychometrics of anatomical dolls

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Anatomically detailed dolls are one of the most popular ways of narrating sexual abuse accounts in children. Mostly, a child's testimony is quite unreliable, and the use of dolls provides better testimony. This is because a child might not clearly remember the details of sexual abuse. Still, with a similar visual of the offender, interrogation can be a bit simple and easier on the child and effective in retrieving required information. However, the use of these dolls raised some questions and ethical issues, including those of Skinner and Berry in law and human behavior. Their work calls for the use of anatomically correct dolls by the implementation of standards in their manufacture and the presence of considerable variability within validation interviews (Skinner & Berry, 1993).

As a result of variability and the absence of scientific support for the use of dolls, Skinner and Berry argue that dolls should not be involved as a basis for expert conclusions. Skinner suggests that more complex research should be performed on these dolls' psychological effect on the abused children and the corresponding usefulness it has on catching the bad guys before establishing the method as scientifically approved. Their emphasis is based on the materials used to manufacture these dolls, administration procedures, scoring, and these dolls' training. Skinner and Berry point out the required standardizations that should be implemented on the four factors before deploying these anatomically detailed dolls for official use.

For anatomically correct dolls to stick around and be useful more research on their utilization ought to be done. Its proper use is established and passed to everyone interrogating children by use of this method. They are mere toys, and unless they are scientifically proven and accepted by society, they will remain useless indicators of actual child sexual abuse( Skinner & Berry, 1993).

References

Skinner, L. J., Berry, B.K. (, 1993). Anatomically detailed dolls and the evaluation of child sexual abuse allegations: Psychometric considerations. Law and Human Behavior, 17(4).