Children's courtroom narratives: Competence, credibility, and the communicative contract

This article addresses the manner in which the communicative contract is executed within the narrative recount context of the courtroom. The ways in which courtroom narratives can violate commonly held communicative assumptions, such as the conversational postulates of sincerity and information, are discussed as well as the ways in which these may affect the perceived competence and credibility of child witnesses. The effects of children's development of comprehension monitoring skills and a theory of mind on their ability to give competent eyewitness testimony are also examined.