Lately, we have seen lots of cases reversing child abuse cases on the ground that the jury could not have reached a decision on whether the defendant committed a particular criminal act because the child's testimony failed to identify a specific time and place that it happened.

Of course, as we know, kids can't always give that kind of information.

So, what solutions have you found for this problem?

Kids mark time differently from adults. Even the youngest know certain common calendar events: Christmas, Halloween, school starts, school ends, their own birthdays. Pegging an episode of abuse to one of these or between two of them will usually work. Often there are unique events that prosecutors can discover through careful interviewing of the kids and families: some I have had in the past include right after grandma's last visit, after school let out but before our trip to Disneyworld and, sadly, the day of my grandad's funeral.

I agree-- they tend to remember Christmas, Halloween, Easter, their own birthday, or an unusual event like the winter it snowed when we lived in South Texas. Then you can try to pinpoint a year if they can remember they were a certain age that Christmas, Halloween, etc. The TDCAA book, Investigation & Prosecution of Child Sexual Abuse Cases has been invaluable to us in dealing with these cases.

I believe there was recently a comment on the TDCAA case summaries regarding the possibility of legislation creating a "continuing course of conduct" offense for child sexual abuse. I think I couple of other states have recently passed such a law and I, for one, would be all for it. That would resolve the "on or about" nightmare that we've all experienced when the little girl can pretty much just tell us, "he did it to me 100 times."