Reminiscing in the early years: Patterns of maternal elaborativeness and children's remembering

Abstract

This study focused on individual differences in maternal style and children's developing recall abilities in early memory conversations. Within a longitudinal design, a sample of 56 mother—child dyads was observed while reminiscing, and the children's language skills were assessed when they were 18, 24, and 30 months old. In contrast to mothers classified as “low-eliciting,” mothers in a “high-eliciting” group offered more open-ended elaborative questions, fewer elaborative statements, and more confirmations to their 18-month-olds. Although all mothers increased in their elaborative questioning over time, the stylistic groups that were identified remained distinct. Moreover, children of high-eliciting mothers were providing more memory information, even at the first time point, than were children of low-eliciting mothers, but these differences were magnified at 24 and 30 months. Results of correlational and regression analysis further suggest that children's concurrent language skills, their 24-month recall abilities, and their mothers' reminiscing style when they were 18-months of age each contribute uniquely to the prediction of children's provision of memory elaborations in conversations about the past at 30 months of age.