Missing children represent an important problem for law enforcement. This problem is complicated by the fact that the appearance of children changes as they grow older, making it more difficult to engage the public's help in finding them. One approach that has been recommended is the use of forensic age progression. In forensic age progression, knowledge of typical facial growth patterns are applied to photographs of children from around the time they went missing in order to provide an estimate of the child's current appearance. Age progression may also use photographs of biological relatives on the assumption that the child?s current appearance may be similar to that of their relatives.
Age progression is used in about one-third of long-term missing child cases. Unfortunately, prior research has been limited and has produced mixed results. Although it is sensible to apply information about average growth rates to provide an estimate of a child's current appearance, there is also considerable variability in growth patterns between children. This makes accurate prediction in the case of an individual child difficult. The planned research examines factors that may influence the effectiveness of age progressions. During the first year, this research will examine the influence of age range on the effectiveness of age progressions. In Years 2 and 3, the research will examine the impact of presenting multiple age progressions showing what the child may currently look like.
The proposed research is one of the first systematic attempts to understand the factors that impact the success of forensic age progression. Knowing more about the factors that lead to successful age progressions will allow practitioners to more create more accurate estimates of the appearance of missing children, resulting in an improved likelihood of recovering missing children.
