Our third invited lecture of 2009-2010 will be given by Dr. Michael E. Lamb, Professor and Head, Department of Social and Developmental Psychology, Cambridge University. The title of his talk is "Can Young Children Be Competent Witnesses about Abuse?" He will be speaking on January 28th from 3:30-5:00pm, located in the Biodesign Institute Auditorium. Abstract: Skepticism about the competence of young witnesses was magnified by a Series of high profile legal cases that appeared to underscore children’s unreliability. Decades of research prompted by these cases have yielded a fuller understanding of children’s strengths and limitations. Because some of this research has shown that children’s performance is so context-dependent, my colleagues and I have been striving to develop interview techniques that allow children to perform as well as they possible can during investigative interviews.