The goal of this study was to determine some of the factors that contribute to developmental differences in using cues to retrieve specific memories. Second- and fifth-grade children and college adults were shown adjective noun-noun word stimulus events (e.g., bloody axe-sword), in which the adjectives strongly modified event meaning, and asked acquisition orienting questions that amplified (specific questions) or diluted (category questions) event specification. In addition, the stimuli were presented once only (one trial) or there was a repeated presentation with a constant or varied orienting question on the second presentation. At retrieval, orienting questions were asked of the retrieval cues that were the same as the acquisition questions, semantically related to the acquisition questions, or no questions were asked, and the retrieval cues reinstated the acquisition context (adjective noun cues) or represented the nominal type of event that was experienced (noun cues). The one-trial results showed that the children had less success than the adults using in the adjective noun retrieval cues for no questions and the related questions, relative to same questions, and also that the children used the noun cues particularly ineffectively. The event repetitions modified these patterns in predictable ways. The results suggest that type information may mediate the use of cues to retrieve specific memory tokens, and type information seems more salient in adult than in child event representations in memory.