Willing to accept Primary and Secondary students for Fall 2025
kmcwilliams@jjay.cuny.edu
Research Interests
Children’s experiences in the legal system:
- Identification of current legal/forensic practices that are misaligned with children’s cognitive and social development.
- Develop empirically-based interviewing techniques that that maximize productivity and overcome reluctance, while minimizing risk of false report.
Current Projects
- Children’s understanding of time and number
- Children’s understanding of implied meaning
- Referential ambiguity in attorney/interviewer questions in child maltreatment cases
- The development of support tools for forensic interviewers (notetaking, wait time)
- Plea bargaining in cases of child sexual abuse
Recent Publications
* Indicates student author
1. McWilliams, K. Williams, S., Henderson, H. M., & Lyon, T. D. (2023). Pseudotemporal invitations: 6- to 9-year-old maltreated children’s tendency to misinterpret invitations referencing “time” as solely requesting conventional temporal information. Child Maltreatment, 28(2), 265-274. https://doi.org/10.1177/10775595221104 .
2. *Campbell, S., *Baker, M., McWilliams, K., & Williams, S. (2023, advanced online copy). Child maltreatment and pediatric pain: A survey of healthcare professionals’ pain knowledge and pain management techniques. Journal of Child Health Care. doi: 10.1177/13674935231167965
3. *Wylie, B. E., Evans, A. D., McWilliams, K., & Stolzenberg, S. N. (2023, advanced online copy). Children’s understanding of implied coaching questions: Does acquiescence influence perceptions of believability? Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 85. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2022.101510
4. *Katzman, J., *Fessinger, M. B., Bornstein, B., & McWilliams, K. (2022). Juvenile or Adult? Effects of Age on Jurors’ Perceptions of Interrogations. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 40(6), 835-858. https://doi.org/10.1002/bsl.2601
5. *Wylie, B., McWilliams, K., Evans, A.D., Stolzenberg, S. N., & Lyon, T. D. (2022, advanced online copy). Young children’s understanding of the epistemic and deontic meanings of ask and tell. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 224. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105516
6. *Merriwether, E., *Fessinger, M.B., Evans, A. D., & Stolzenberg, S. N. & McWilliams, K. (2022, advanced online copy). A preference for the proximate occurrence: Adults’ relative temporal judgments and interpretations of children’s judgments. Psychology, Public Policy, & Law. https://doi.org/10.1037/law0000367
7. *Wylie, B. E., *St. George, S., McWilliams, K., Evans, A. D., & Stolzenberg, S. N., (2022- online advanced copy). Children’s Acquiescence to Polysemous Implicature Questions Implying Coaching; The Role of Parental-Support. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2021.101370.
8. *St. George, S., *Sullivan, C., *Wylie, B. E., McWilliams, K., Evans, A. D., & Stolzenberg, S. N. (2022- online advanced copy). Did Your Mom Help You Remember?: An Examination of Attorneys’ Subtle Questioning about Suggestive Influence to Children Testifying about Child Sexual Abuse. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 37(15-16). doi: 10.1177/08862605211006369
9. Chae, Y., Goodman, G. S., Wang, Yan, Goodman-Wilson, M., McWilliams, K., Shaver, P. R., Thompson, R. A., & Widaman, K., (2021). Parents’ Attachment Orientation, Interviewers’ Support, and Children’s Memory for a Distressing Event. Memory, 29(10),1384-1395. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2021.1988644
10. McWilliams, K., Stolzenberg, S. N., Williams, S., & Lyon, T. D. (2021). Increasing maltreated and nonmaltreated children’s recall of a minor transgression: The effects of back-channel utterances, a promise to tell the truth, and a post-recall putative confession. Child Abuse & Neglect, 116(1). doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.104073
11. McWilliams, K., Williams, S., Stolzenberg, S. N., Evans, A. D., & Lyon, T. D. (2021). Don’t know responding in young maltreated children: The effects of wh-questions type and enhanced interview instructions. Law and Human Behavior, 45(2), 124-137. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000404
12. Stolzenberg, S. N., Williams, S., McWilliams, K., +Liang, C. X., & Lyon, T. D. (2021). The utility of direct questions in eliciting subjective content from children disclosing sexual abuse. Child Abuse & Neglect, 116(1). doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2019.02.014
13. *Baker, M., *Fessinger, M., McWilliams, K., & Williams, S. (2021). The use of note-taking during forensic interviews: Perceptions and practical recommendations for interviewer. Developmental Child Welfare, 3(1), 20-35. https://doi.org/10.1177/25161032211002187
14. *Wylie, B., Stolzenberg, S. N., McWilliams, K., Evans, A. D., & Lyon, T. D. (2021). Young children’s ability to describe intermediate clothing placement. Child Maltreatment, 26(1), 87-94. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077559520930825
15. *Fessinger, M., McWilliams, K., +Bakth, F., & Lyon, T. D. (2021). Setting the Ground Rules: Use and Practice of Ground Rules in Child Forensic Interviews. Child Maltreatment, 26(1),126-132. doi: 10.1177/1077559520910783
16. Klemfuss, J. Z., McWilliams K., *Olaguez, A., Lyon, T. D, & Henderson, H. M. (2020, online copy). Order of Encoding Predicts Young Children’s Responses to Sequencing Questions. Cognitive Development, 55. doi: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.100927
17. Williams, S., McWilliams, K. & Lyon, T.D. (2020, online copy). Children’s concealment of a minor transgression: The role of age, maltreatment, and executive functioning. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 191. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2019.104664
