Abstract
Many new skills are acquired during early childhood. Typical laboratory skill learning tasks are not applicable for developmental studies that involve children younger than 8 years of age. It is not clear whether young children and adults share a basic underlying skill learning mechanism. In the present study, the learning and retention of a simple grapho-motor pattern were studied in three age groups: 5–6, 7–8, and 19–29 years. Each block of the task consists of identical patterns arranged in a spaced writing array. Progression across the block involves on-page movements while producing the pattern, and off-page movements between patterns. The participants practiced the production of the pattern using a digitizing tablet and were tested at 24 h and 2 weeks post-practice. All age groups produced the task blocks more quickly with practice, and the learning rate was inversely related to the initial production time. All groups exhibited additional gains 24 h post-practice that were well-retained 2 weeks later. The accuracy of the participants was maintained throughout the 2-weeks period. These findings suggest that young children and young adults use a similar mechanism when learning the task. Nevertheless, the 6-years-old spent more time off-page during retention testing than when tested at 24 h post-practice, thus supporting the notion that an age advantage may exists in the long-term retention of skills due to planning-dependent aspects.
Highlights
A central neurobehavioral tenet asserts that the long-term retention of memories is subserved by two separate and distinct systems: a declarative system which retains singular experiences and memories of facts and events, and a procedural system which addresses repeated experiences and memories of skills and habits (Cohen and Squire, 1980; Brown and Robertson, 2007)
Procedural memory plays a major role during childhood when many new motor skills are acquired
It has been proposed that these delayed (“offline”) gains in performance reflect memory consolidation neural processes within the processing stream that are involved in task performance, i.e., these processes are triggered by the training experience but require time to reach completion (Feldman, 2009; Xu et al, 2009; Caroni et al, 2012)
Summary
A central neurobehavioral tenet asserts that the long-term retention of memories is subserved by two separate and distinct systems: a declarative system which retains singular experiences and memories of facts and events, and a procedural system which addresses repeated experiences and memories of skills and habits (Cohen and Squire, 1980; Brown and Robertson, 2007). The cognitive processes and neural substrates that mediate our capacity to acquire and retain new skills have been studied extensively in recent years by following the time-dependent course of learning (for reviews see Robertson et al, 2004; Doyon and Benali, 2005; Censor et al, 2012). An extensive body of research has shown that in adults, the development of skilled performance often extends beyond the actual training experience. This has recently been shown to occur in children (Dorfberger et al, 2007; Savion-Lemieux et al, 2009). The resulting gains are maintained for weeks (e.g., Korman et al, 2003; Dorfberger et al, 2007; but see Savion-Lemieux and Penhune, 2005)
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