Two-year-old talk about the past

Abstract

Children between 29 and 35 months of age were interviewed in order to determine how much they remember about their past experiences, how they organize what they remember, and how long they are able to retain memories of past events. Children readily participated in the conversations, and recalled a great deal of accurate information about events they had experienced both in the recent past (up to 3 months ago) and the distant past (more than 3 months ago). The mean number of conversational turns, the number and type of questions asked (prompts, probes, yes/no), and the amount and type of information provided by the child about the events under discussion did not differ significantly for the two retention intervals. Children organized their recall in one of two ways, in a question/answer form or a narrative form, but this was neither an individual difference nor a function of retention interval. The results are discussed along with other recent findings about young children's memory abilities, and directions for future research are suggested.