Memory Development

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

• 3 Types of memory: Short-term, working memory, long-term

• STM Memory Span:

  • Children ages 2-3 Can recall back 2 digits, to about 5 digits by age 7

  • There are individual differences in memory

Working Memory

• The average 5-year-old can hold one or two pieces of information in his mind at a time.

  • E.g. “put your book in your cubby, and come sit at the table”

• Memory span & WM increases with age due to rehearsal, automaticity

  • Less resources being used, things become more automatic

• To help younger children with memory and automaticity- learn things through song, movement/multisensory

Long Term Memory

• 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 and time, details, can retain memories long term

Context

• Kids’ memories are more coherent when there’s a context of who, what, where, when, why, and how

• Memories that are tied with emotion and fit into a greater context are more likely to form earlier and last longer.

  • You can help this process by talking to kids about experiences from their lives.

• Peterson conducted a study of parental influence on early memories. In the 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

  • This was held particularly true for father’s and sons, based on the study results.