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The Wiley Handbook of Memory, Autism Spectrum Disorder, and the Law

Edited by

Jonni L. Johnson

Gail S. Goodman

Peter C. Mundy









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Notes on Contributors

Andrea Arndorfer is Assistant Professor of Criminology at California State University, Fresno. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology from Florida International University in 2016. Her research interests center on various topics at the intersection of psychology and the law such as criminal interrogation and confessions, eyewitness memory, and the social and cognitive factors influencing lineup identification decisions and post‐decision judgments.

Daniel Bederian‐Gardner, Ph.D., graduated from the University of California, Davis, studying various issues relating to children’s involvement as witnesses in the legal system, such as the interplay of children’s moral development and testimony. He has studied and authored chapters about characteristics of child witnesses that influence judgments of their credibility. Dr. Bederian‐Gardner has also conducted research on true and false memory across development. He is currently addressing the impact of foster care on mental health outcomes.

Dermot M. Bowler graduated from Trinity College Dublin in 1976 and gained his Ph.D. from the University of London in 1986. After working at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, and subsequently, with Dr. Lorna Wing at the Medical Research Council, he joined City, University of London in 1990. At City, he set up the Autism Research Group and currently holds the position of Professor of Psychology. He has also held an adjunct professorship at McGill University, Montreal, as well as a European Union‐funded visiting chair at the University of Caen and the French National Institute for Medical and Health Research (INSERM). His research interests center on the neuropsychology of memory across the lifespan in individuals with autism spectrum disorders.

Neil Brewer, Ph.D., is the Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Flinders University, South Australia. He is an experimental psychologist with broad interests in the psychology‐law area, including eyewitness identification and reporting, determinants of testimonial credibility, and cognitive and social characteristics that may contribute to naive involvement in criminal activity by ASD individuals. He is on the editorial boards of Law and Human Behavior and Psychology, Public Policy and Law, and has served on the editorial boards of all of the major psychology‐law journals. Professor Brewer is just completing his term as Editor of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.

Lorinda B. Camparo, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Whittier College, where she has taught and conducted research on enhancing children’s narrative reports since 1997. Dr. Camparo has published numerous articles and book chapters, and recently co‐authored the book Evidence‐based child forensic interviewing: The Developmental Narrative Elaboration Interview (Oxford University Press, 2014) with Dr. Karen Saywitz. Dr. Camparo has also conducted workshops on interviewing children for lawyers, judges, police officers, and social workers, and she has served as an expert witness on cases involving children alleging sexual abuse.

Michael Carlin, Ph.D., attended Peabody College of Education and Human Development of Vanderbilt University for his graduate training, and worked with Dr. Sal Soraci and Dr. Alan Baumeister at the John F. Kennedy Center. Upon graduation, he moved to Massachusetts to work at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center from 1994 to 2007. He then accepted a faculty position at Rider University, where he teaches courses in Cognitive and Developmental Disabilities, Statistics, and Cognitive Psychology.

Yoojin Chae, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor in Human Development and Family Studies at Texas Tech University. Her research focuses on children’s abilities as witnesses, including children’s eyewitness memory and suggestibility, trauma and memory, attachment and memory, language and memory, forensic interview techniques, and adults’ evaluations of children’s autobiographical memory. She received her doctorate in human development from Cornell University.

Laura Crane, Ph.D., is Senior Teaching and Engagement Fellow at the Centre for Research in Autism and Education (CRAE) at the University College London Institute of Education in the United Kingdom. Dr. Crane completed her undergraduate and postgraduate training in Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, before taking postdoctoral research positions at City, University of London and Goldsmiths, University of London. Dr. Crane’s research focuses on supporting children and adults on the autism spectrum within the criminal justice system as well as exploring the educational and healthcare experiences of autistic adults, parents of children on the autism spectrum, and professionals working in the field of autism.

Deborah Davis, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno, and a member of the faculty of the National Judicial College. She has published widely in the areas of witness memory, police interrogation and confessions, communicating and understanding sexual intentions, and other areas as well. She worked for more than 20 years as a trial consultant, has testified as an expert witness in close to 150 trials, and is a frequent speaker at Continuing Legal Education seminars across the country.

Sebastian B. Gaigg, Ph.D., joined the Autism Research Group at City, University of London in 2001 and has since then pursued two primary research interests. One strand of his work focuses on understanding learning and memory processes across the autism spectrum, with projects ranging from the examination of episodic memory in autistic adults who live relatively independent lives to studies of basic learning processes in young autistic children who have very significant language and intellectual impairments. His second strand of work seeks to develop a better understanding of the emotional lives of individuals with autism, particularly concerning the mechanisms underlying the unusually high prevalence of anxiety disorders in this population.

Lorna Goddard, Ph.D., is a senior lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London. She has published over 20 articles and chapters related to theoretical research on autobiographical memory in autism. She is also a registered cognitive behavior therapist involved in researching and delivering intervention service for individuals with autism spectrum disorder.

Deborah Goldfarb, J.D., is a developmental psychology doctoral candidate at the University of California, Davis. Prior to attending graduate school, Deborah worked as an attorney, including two years as a law clerk to a federal district court judge. She graduated cum laude with a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan Law School and a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana‐Champaign. She has published research on children's legal involvement in law reviews, books, and journals, and has presented this work internationally.

Alejandra Gonzalez is a researcher at the University of California, Davis, currently conducting studies on trauma and memory. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and a Bachelor of Science degree in Genetics and Genomics from the University of California, Davis, and she has published about the topic of child suggestibility in the courtroom. Her interests include trauma‐related psychopathology as well as challenges faced by disadvantaged populations in the legal system.

Gail S. Goodman, Ph.D., is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. Her research concerns such topics as children’s and adults’ eyewitness memory, child maltreatment, forensic interviewing, victimization, legal involvement, and trauma and memory. She has served as President of several divisions of the American Psychological Association (e.g., Developmental Psychology, American Psychology‐Law Society, Child and Family Policy and Practice). She is internationally known for her research on victims and witnesses, which has been cited multiple times by the U.S. Supreme Court. Dr. Goodman has published widely and received numerous national awards and grants for her research and writings.

Catherine Grainger, Ph.D., is a lecturer at the University of Stirling. Her research focuses on understanding the nature of autism spectrum disorder. In particular, she is interested in understanding self‐awareness, theory of mind, and memory in autism.

Ambar Guzman, ACSW, is a clinical social worker and recent graduate of the University of California Los Angeles, where she was also a trainee for the University of California Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Other Related Disabilities (UC‐LEND). She worked as a therapist for adolescents, and then most recently, transitioned to serving the community as a medical social worker. Her experience in the forensic interviewing field includes her past work as the project director of a child interviewing lab and serving as a bilingual forensic interviewer for a local Children’s Advocacy Center.

Sue D. Hobbs, Ph.D., is a developmental psychologist, Assistant Professor at Sacramento State University in the Child Development Area of the College of Education, and a member of the American Psychological Association Division 7 (Developmental Psychology) Executive Committee. Her research focuses on two key areas of child development as they relate to child victims and witnesses: 1) children’s eyewitness testimony, specifically, suggestibility, memory development, and secret‐keeping; and 2) factors influencing the outcomes of foster youth once they emancipate from care.

Jonni L. Johnson is completing her Ph.D. at the University of California, Davis, with research interest in developmental psychology, autism spectrum disorder, and the law. Funded by the National Science Foundation, American Psychological Association, and American Psychology‐Law Association, her dissertation examines memory functions in youths with and without autism spectrum disorder and the utility of forensic memory interviewing protocols. She has published and presented scientific papers on the development of children’s eyewitness abilities, perceptions of children’s eyewitness abilities, and more recently, eyewitness abilities in individuals with autism spectrum disorder.

Elisa Krackow, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Psychology at West Virginia University. She earned her doctorate in clinical psychology from Binghamton University, SUNY. She conducts research on eyewitness memory relevant to clinical issues and populations.

Julia Landsiedel is completing her Ph.D. at the University of Kent and will begin a postdoctoral research position at Bangor University in November 2017. Her research focuses on the typical and atypical development of prospective memory and social interaction.

Sophie E. Lind, Ph.D., is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology and member of the Autism Research Group at City, University of London. Her research explores cognition in autism, and her key interests include self‐referential cognition, episodic memory, episodic foresight, and metacognition in people with this disorder.

Arthur MacNeill Horton, Jr., received his Ed.D. degree from the University of Virginia in 1976, holds ABPP Diplomates in Clinical and Behavioral Psychology and an ABN Diplomate in Neuropsychology, and is the author/editor of 15 books. He is a past‐president of the National Academy of Neuropsychology (NAN) and the Maryland Psychological Association (MPA). Previously, Dr. Horton was a Program Officer with the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Currently, Dr. Horton is Editor in Chief of Applied Neuropsychology. He recently co‐edited (with Danny Wedding, Ph.D.), The Neuropsychology Handbook (3rd edition).

Lindsay C. Malloy, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology in Oshawa, located in Ontario, Canada. Her research addresses questions concerning children’s and adolescents’ disclosure of negative or traumatic experiences, cognitive and sociocontextual influences on children’s memory and narratives, and implications of research findings for the legal system.

Katie Maras, Ph.D., is a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom. She has an international reputation for her research in the field of autism and forensic psychology in which she takes a theoretically informed, applied approach with a particular focus on memory and cognition. Much of her research to date has focused on how the specific memory difficulties of adults with autism affect the evidence that they provide in the criminal justice system, and how police interviewing techniques can be adapted to support their difficulties.

Haylie L. Miller, Ph.D., is an experimental psychologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth, Texas. Her training in cognitive development and expertise in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) support two key areas of study: gist‐based information processing and memory, and sensorimotor integration. Dr. Miller currently directs a federally funded (National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation) program of research on the development of visual information processing and attention in ASD, and their impact on functional movement.

Rebecca Milne, Ph.D., is Professor of Forensic Psychology at the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies at the University of Portsmouth. The main focus of her work over the past 20 years concerns the examination of police interviewing and investigation that improve the quality of interviews administered. She is also Director of the Centre of Forensic Interviewing and a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers’ Investigative Interviewing Strategic Steering Group. Notably, she was part of a writing team that developed the 2007 version of Achieving Best Evidence: National Guidelines for Interviewing Vulnerable Groups.

Allison P. Mugno is Assistant Professor of Psychology at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology from Florida International University in 2017. Her research interests focus on issues at the intersection of developmental and legal psychology, with a particular emphasis on the cognitive and sociocontextual factors that affect the honesty and accuracy of children’s eyewitness testimony.

Peter C. Mundy, Ph.D., is Distinguished Professor of Education and the Lisa Capps Professor of Neurodevelopmental Disorders and Education at the MIND Institute and the School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at University of California, Davis. He is an expert in the education and development of children with autism. As a developmental and clinical psychologist, Mundy has been working on defining the major dimensions of autism for the past 32 years.

Timothy N. Odegard, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and holds the endowed Chair of Excellence in Dyslexic Studies at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU). He oversees the efforts of the Tennessee Center for the Study and Treatment of Dyslexia, which is a research center housed on the MTSU campus. He earned his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Arkansas in 2004. His research in cognitive development has focused on semantic and episodic memory development, and the acquisition of reading skills.

Matilda Ohlsson, Ph.D., received her Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from The University of York, followed by a Master of Science degree in Memory and Memory Disorders from the University of Leeds. After this, she completed her training in clinical psychology at the University of Hull. Currently, she is a practicing clinical psychologist working across neuropsychology and neurorehabilitation services in Leeds.

Valerie Reyna, Ph.D., is Professor and Director of the Human Neuroscience Institute at Cornell University. She has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine and the Society of Experimental Psychologists, and served as President of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making. Her research integrates brain and behavioral approaches to understand and improve judgment, decision‐making, and memory across the lifespan. Her recent work has focused on the neuroscience of risky decision‐making and its implications for health and well‐being, especially in adolescents; applications of artificial intelligence to understanding cancer genetics; and medical and legal decision‐making (e.g., jury awards, medication decisions, and adolescent crime).

Joanne Richards, Ph.D., worked in special education for 20 years, and set up units and outreach services for children with multisensory impairment and teenagers with complex communication needs. She is a lecturer at the University of Portsmouth for the Institute of Criminal Justice and a member of the Centre of Forensic Interviewing.

Karen J. Saywitz, Ph.D., is Professor at the UCLA, School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Bio‐behavioral Sciences and a developmental and clinical psychologist. For over 25 years, she has directed programs providing mental health services to families and taught normative child development to students in medicine, law, psychology, social work, and nursing. She is an expert on the capabilities, limitations, and needs of children involved in the legal system, authoring articles applying developmental science to legal decision‐making that have been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court. Dr. Saywitz has won national awards for research, teaching, advocacy, and clinical service; she has chaired blue‐ribbon panels on public health strategies to prevent child maltreatment in primary care settings; and authored handbooks for judges and forensic interviewers on the efficacy of child interview strategies and preparing child witnesses for court.

Henry V. Soper received his Bachelor’s degree from Yale University; he then received his M. A. and Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut. He has served as a reviewer for Perceptual and Motor Skills, Psychological Reports, Applied Neuropsychology, both Adult and Child. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Neuropsychology and the Psychonomic Society, and on the Editorial Board of The Encyclopedia of Neuropsychological Disorder. He has published over 130 abstracts, papers, chapters, and books in the neurosciences, neuropsychology, and related fields in medicine and psychology, and chaired over 40 dissertations.

Céline Souchay is a Senior Researcher at Le Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France. After completing her Ph.D. on metacognition in Alzheimer’s disease in Tours in 2000, she held posts in Montreal, Strasbourg, Plymouth, and Leeds. She moved back to France in 2012 and to Grenoble in 2015. She is on the editorial board of the journal Memory and is co‐director of a national research group on memory. She has a broad interest in the higher‐order contributions to episodic memory in various clinical populations.

David M. Williams, Ph.D., is Professor of Developmental Psychology and head of the Developmental Research Group at the University of Kent. His research focuses on theory of mind, metacognition, and language development in people with autism and the neurotypical population.

Diane L. Williams, Ph.D., CCC‐SLP is Professor and Head of the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Pennsylvania State University. She has authored numerous peer‐reviewed publications and book chapters on the neurobiological and neuropsychological basis of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) with an emphasis on language, cognition, and memory. Dr. Williams has worked extensively with individuals with ASD across the age span in her clinical practice as a speech‐language pathologist.

Emily F. Wood is pursuing her Ph.D. in Interdiscplinary Social Psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. She investigates topics related to decision‐making, stigma, prejudice, and injustices in the legal system.

Robyn L. Young, Ph.D., has published widely in peer‐reviewed journals, such as Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, Autism Research, and Psychological Assessment, with over 30 papers published in the field of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Her initial research involved the development of an early screening tool and intervention programs for young children with ASD. Currently, she is often asked to assess older individuals and provide expertise as an expert witness and submit reports to the court, specifically concerning whether ASD may be considered as a mediating factor in criminal activity. This has led to the study of adults with ASD, focusing on diagnostic issues and on ASD adults’ interactions with the criminal justice system. This work stimulated a book with co‐author Neil Brewer entitled Crime and Autism Spectrum Disorder: Myths and Mechanisms (Brewer & Young, 2015).

Tiziana Zalla, Ph.D., is Research Director at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and head of the Social Cognition group at the Jean Nicod Institute, in the Department of Cognitive Studies at the École normale supérieure in Paris. Her work mainly focuses on social cognition in people with autism spectrum disorders and people who fall within the typically developing population, using a multidisciplinary approach bringing together concepts and methodologies from social psychology, neuropsychology, cognitive neuroscience, and biological psychiatry.

Irina Zilberfayen has been a Licensed Professional Counselor since 2000, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with a Neuropsychology concentration at Fielding Graduate University. Her interest in developmental disorders grew out of her teaching background, clinical training, and counseling experience with children and their families with learning and developmental disorders in schools and community mental health clinics.

Acknowledgment

Dr. Goodman’s contributions here were supported in part by grants from the National Science Foundation (Nos. 1424420 and 1627297). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in her contributions to this book are those of hers as author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.