Early Childhood: Memory

Peterson conducted a study of

________ parental influence on early memories.

Memories that are tied with emotion and fit into a greater context

________are more likely to form earlier and last longer.

3 Types of memory

Short-term, working memory, long-term

You can help kids connect memories with context by

talking to kids about experiences from their lives.

In Peterson’s experiment, young adults (ages 18-28) were asked to

recall as many memories involving parents as they could from their preschool years (before age 6).

Peterson found that when individuals had warm parents that spent time talking about the past,

they remembered more of early life, AND had memories from further back in their lives.

Peterson’s results help particularly true for

father’s and son’s

Kids’ memories are more coherent when

there’s a context of who, what, where, when, why, and how

For long term memories young children create

autobiographical, episodic memories

Two-year-old children form autobiographical memories and

remember them over periods of at least several months

Ages 3-5, increasingly remember

specific location, time, and details

The average 5-year-old can hold

one or two pieces of information in his mind at a time

Memory span & WM increases with

age due to rehearsal, automaticity

automaticity

less resources being used, things become more
automatic

To help younger children with memory and automaticity-

learn things through song, movement/multisensory

Memory development increases from

infancy and toddlerhood, becomes more detailed, able to recall and work with information.

Children ages 2-3 can recall back

2 digits

Children age 7 can recall back

about 5 digits

There are individual differences in

memory

Children ages 3-5 can retain

memories long term