Mireille Cyr

Université de Montréal | UdeM · Department of Psychology

The recommendations of this white paper are jointly drafted by researchers in childinterviewing active within the European Association of Psychology and Law and are focusedon cases in which children are interviewed in forensic settings, in particular withininvestigations of child sexual and/or physical abuse.

Les connaissances scientifiques concernant le témoignage des enfants ont explosé au cours des trente dernières années. Elles ont permis de mieux baliser la pratique de l’audition des mineurs et de tout entretien requis à des fins d’expertise ou d’évaluation auprès d’enfants. Cet ouvrage offre aux intervenants une synthèse des connaissances acquises...

Résumé Objectifs Lanterne est un programme de prévention de la violence sexuelle ayant été implanté dans 23 milieux éducatifs s’adressant aux enfants de 0 à 5 ans dans la province de Québec, Canada. Cette étude vise à documenter les effets de la formation offerte au personnel de milieux d’intervention et d’éducation à la petite enfance. Méthodes...

Le programme Lanterne vise à prévenir la violence sexuelle et s'adresse aux enfants d'âge préscolaire ainsi qu'aux adultes qui gravitent autour d'eux. Cette étude vise à recueillir 1) les perceptions des personnes éducatrices concernant l'utilisation des outils pédagogiques du programme auprès des enfants et 2) l'expérience subjective des personnes...

This study examines the narratives of children victims of sexual abuse. Specifically, our objective was to explore how sixteen children aged six to eight use language during their investigative interview to avoid mentioning the sexual acts they suffered. One way to silence these acts is the introduction into their discourse of temporal gaps in the...

Ce chapitre propose d’appliquer le concept de la mentalisation au travail des professionnels du système psychojudiciaire, en s’appuyant sur la littérature scientifi que et en offrant divers exemples, notamment chez les policiers. Le double rôle que les policiers endossent, à la fois d’autorité et de protection, comporte une complexité importante su...

Child sexual abuse (CSA) is associated with many repercussions on adolescents' mental health, including suicidal ideation. Yet, the mechanisms linking CSA to adverse outcomes have rarely been investigated within a longitudinal design. The current study aimed to examine the role of affect dysregulation in the association between depressive symptoms...

Depressive symptoms, posttraumatic stress disorder, and suicidal ideation are among the most prevalent problems associated with sexual abuse. Based on the Traumagenic dynamic of stigmatization model, the aim of this study was to investigate whether self-blame, shame, and maladaptive coping strategies predicted posttraumatic stress disorder, depress...

Denault, V., Plusquellec, P., Jupe, L. M., St-Yves, M., Dunbar, N. E., Hartwig, M., … van Koppen, P. J. (2020). L’analyse de la communication non verbale: Les dangers de la pseudoscience en contextes de sécurité et de justice [The analysis of nonverbal communication: The dangers of pseudoscience in security and justice contexts]. Revue internationa...

For security and justice professionals (e.g., police officers, lawyers, judges), the thousands of peer-reviewed articles on nonverbal communication represent important sources of knowledge. However, despite the scope of the scientific work carried out on this subject, professionals can turn to programs, methods, and approaches that fail to reflect...

Para los profesionales de la seguridad y la justicia (policías, abogados, jueces), los miles de artículos revisados por pares sobre comunicación no verbal representan fuentes importantes de conocimiento. Sin embargo, a pesar del alcance del trabajo científico realizado sobre este tema, los profesionales pueden recurrir a programas, métodos y enfoqu...

Le programme Lanterne vise à prévenir la violence sexuelle et s’adresse aux enfants d’âge préscolaire ainsi qu’aux adultes qui gravitent autour d’eux. Cette étude vise à recueillir 1) les perceptions des personnes éducatrices concernant l’utilisation des outils pédagogiques du programme auprès des enfants et 2) l’expérience subjective des personnes...

L’entrevue d’enquête auprès d’un enfant victime d’agression sexuelle comporte plusieurs défis, dont l’obtention d’un nombre suffisant de détails précis pour comprendre l’agression. Cette étude s’intéresse à la nature des mots dévoilés par l’enfant pour décrire les lieux de son agression en fonction de son âge et du type de questions posées. Une ana...

This study aimed to document the prevalence and co-occurrence of bullying and sexual harassment in sexually abused teens while examining their association with suicidality. The sample consisted of 195 teenage girls aged 12-18 consulting intervention centres in Quebec, Canada following disclosure of sexual abuse. Participants completed questionnaire...

Background The current state of knowledge regarding the role of non-offending fathers in supporting their sexually abused children is very scarce. Objective The objective of this study is to further our understanding of fathers’ roles following disclosure of their children’s sexual abuse (SA) by evaluating fathers’ perceptions of the impact of dis...

Le protocole du National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) a été développé par Michael E. Lamb et ses collègues (1996, 2008) pour traduire les recommandations de la recherche en des étapes opérationnelles pour interviewer les enfants, âgés entre 4 et 12 ans, que l'on soupçonne victimes d'agression sexuelle. Celui-ci peut toute...

Le but de l’article est de présenter les résultats d’un consortium d’experts désignés par le Centre d’expertise Marie-Vincent. Le mandat du consortium était d’évaluer l’état des connaissances sur les agressions sexuelles envers les enfants âgés de 5 ans et moins. Cette synthèse met en lumière les défis liés au dépistage, aux enquêtes et à l’évaluat...

Child sexual abuse (CSA) can severely affect the mental health of children and their parents. While correlates of recovery have been documented in children, factors exacerbating parents' adaptation to their child's unveiling of CSA deserves further attention. Parents' history of abuse has been inconsistently identified as a predictor of their distr...

Non-offending maternal (NOM) support is considered one of the most important protective factors in facilitating better victim adjustment following the disclosure of child sexual abuse (CSA). However, recent findings have led authors to conclude that NOM support has yet to be properly conceptualized and operationalized within the CSA literature. Emo...

It is increasingly recognized that child sexual abuse (CSA) has significant consequences that can affect mental health. Many adverse impacts can develop in female adolescent victims, such as negative affect, aggressive behaviors and suicidality. Empirical data documented the association between CSA and suicidality, but studies show heterogeneous re...

Objective: This study aimed to examine the relationship between maternal and contextual factors including maternal personality traits, the quality of mother–child relationship, the characteristics of sexual abuse and maternal outcomes: (1) maternal reactions including feelings of anger and responsibility, anger and perceptions of responsibility of...

The impact of child sexual abuse (CSA) disclosure on parents’ psychological health has been documented among samples of nonoffending parents. Much less is known about the parents’ physical health. This study assesses the longitudinal impact of CSA disclosure on both the mental and physical health of parents and explores potential gender differences...

L’agression sexuelle (AS) à l’enfance est un phénomène social endémique qui peut engendrer de multiples répercussions chez les adolescentes survivantes (Newcomb et al., 2009). La documentation scientifique fait état d’un risque plus élevé de consommation de substances (Sartor, 2013), ainsi qu’un risque plus élevé d’adopter des comportements autodes...

Disclosure is one of the keys to providing help to victims of sexual abuse (SA). It is a source of many psychological benefits and a way to obtain appropriate support resources. However, there is an important difference between the number of victims that have been sexually abused and the number that have actually disclosed the abuse. This means tha...

Le dévoilement d’une agression sexuelle est une étape critique pour entreprendre des mesures légales et de protection bien que plusieurs enfants soient résistants à dévoiler. Cet article présente une recension des écrits sur le processus de dévoilement dans le cadre de l’entrevue d’enquête et sur les facteurs associés au phénomène de la résistance....

Capsule de recherche

Objective: Prior studies have documented the potential role of nonoffending parent support in promoting recovery of adult survivors following sexual abuse (SA). However, few studies have distinguished the maternal and paternal role and the mechanisms by which quality of the parent-child relationship might foster more positive outcomes in child vict...

Our understanding of the criminal process of child sexual abuse (CSA) cases in the province of Québec remains limited. In order to better determine the variables linked to the investigators’ decision to substantiate the complaint and the district attorney’s to authorize its proceeding in court, characteristics of the child, sexual abuse, shared cus...

Plusieurs facteurs sont susceptibles d’influencer la dynamique des entrevues d’enquête menées auprès d’enfants que l’on soupçonne victimes d’agression sexuelle (AS). Cette étude vise à examiner l’effet du soutien de l’intervieweur, des caractéristiques de l’enfant et de l’AS alléguée sur la collaboration offerte par l’enfant. Ainsi, 90 entrevues co...

The present study looks into the association between the types of questions used by interviewers and the number of details obtained among preschoolers during an investigative interview. An innovative aspect of this study concerns the analysis of question subtypes (eg. open-ended directive and closed-ended). Analysis of variance were carried out on...

This chapter examines the various challenges faced by parents after their child's disclosure of sexual abuse. The review includes the familial, social and judicial dimensions of parents' adaptation as well as the existing services that can be provided to help parents in the support and protection roles we expect them to play. Starting in 1984, in t...

Sexual abuse is associated with a host of negative repercussions in adolescence. Yet the possible mechanisms linking sexual abuse and negative outcomes are understudied. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among self-blame, shame, coping strategies, posttraumatic stress disorder, depressive symptoms, and suicidal ideation...

Disclosure of child sexual abuse can be traumatic for nonoffending parents. Research has shown its impact on mothers’ mental health, which includes heightened psychological distress, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Very little is known, however, about its impact on their physical health or on fathers’ health. The self-perceived ment...

Despite important progress in knowledge about interview ‘best practice’ with child victims, few studies had yet evaluated the impact of interviewers’ personal characteristics on adherence to these ‘best practice’. This study was designed to determine whether interviewers’ personal characteristics are associated with adherence to a structured interv...

The purpose of this study is to explore the predictive value of child sexual abuse characteristics (relationship between the child and the suspect, reported coercion, type and frequency of abuse) as well as the disclosure context (disclosure made on purpose or accidentally, maternal belief, and protective actions) on the number of central forensica...

In the past 20 years, guidelines have been developed to help interviewers investigate cases of alleged child sexual abuse (CSA), but few studies have assessed investigators’ abilities to adhere to these guidelines. This study aimed to evaluate whether some investigative interviewers’ personal attributes are related to their performance in a mock in...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review an evidence-based tool for training child forensic interviewers called the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Protocol (NICHD Protocol), with a specific focus on how the Protocol is being adapted in various countries. Design/methodology/approach – The authors include internation...

To our knowledge, few studies have been conducted on the quality of information reported during forensic investigation of sexually abused children. Prior research has rather focused on the quantity of details recalled by children. The aim of this study is twofold: 1) to examine the effects of the type of questions asked by interviewers on the evide...

In the field of child sexual abuse (CSA) disclosure, many studies have been conducted on the impact of interviewers' questioning style, but few have examined the impact of interviewers' supportive comments on children's cooperative and reluctant disclosure of substantive details. This field study used a sample of children ranging from 4 to 13 years...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review an evidence-based tool for training child forensic interviewers called the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Protocol (NICHD Protocol), with a specific focus on how the Protocol is being adapted in various countries. Design/methodology/approach – The authors include internation...

Cette étude se penche sur le rôle du soutien social dans l’adaptation post-traumatique de victimes d’agression sexuelle. Les objectifs visés consistent à décrire en profondeur et mieux comprendre comment des adolescentes victimes d’agression sexuelle perçoivent le soutien social qu’elles reçoivent. Les propos recueillis lors d’une entrevue clinique...

This study uses a large, probabilistic administrative dataset of sexual abuse cases under child protection investigation, in order to (1) draw a portrait of the characteristics of sibling sexual abuse cases investigated by intake workers and (2) compare the findings from sexual abuse investigation that involve either alleged sibling or non-sibling...

Parental support provided to child sexual abuse (CSA) victims is a key element in their recovery process. Yet, little is known about the extent and nature of support provided by fathers when they are not identified as the perpetrators. This study compares abuse-specific and nonspecific support provided by 92 mothers and 32 fathers after disclosure...

Maternal support offered to sexually abused children following disclosure may be a crucial factor in children's recovery. A person-centered approach was used to examine how profiles of nonoffending mothers could better describe their ability to support their children after disclosure. Cluster analyses based on a total of 226 nonoffending mothers re...

13 Juin 2013 Publié dans Revue Internationale de CRIMINOLOGIE et de POLICE Technique et Scientifique 02/2013 L’audition de mineurs témoins ou victimes: l’efficacité du protocole du NICHD par Mireille Cyr, Jacinthe Dion, Irit Hershkowitz et Michael E. Lamb Résumé Cet article présente le protocole du National Institute of Child Health and Human Devel...

Intellectual disability (ID) is a condition characterized by significant limitations in intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior, which affects various everyday social and practical skills This disability manifests itself before the age of 18 (American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities [AAIDD], 2010). While the global...

This article presents the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Investigative Interview Protocol (NICHD), which was designed to interview children under twelve years who have witnessed a crime or have been victims of sexual or physical abuse or other forms of maltreatment. The objectives within each of the three phases of the Pro...