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Memory in Very Young Children

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Cognitive Learning and Memory in Children

Part of the book series: Springer Series in Cognitive Development ((2116))

Abstract

The recent flurry of research on memory in very young children has taken a long time to materialize. Numerous anecdotal descriptions detailing toddlers’ “amazing” abilities to recognize scenes or to recall events occurring days, weeks, and even months earlier seem to have been met, in the past, with a twinge of curiosity and perhaps graciously phrased platitudes such as “Yes, babies and young children can do some marvelous things.” Even so accomplished an observer as Charles Darwin was uncertain whether it was “worth mentioning” that his 3-year-old son recognized a picture of his grandfather whom he had not seen for 6 months. This child recalled a “whole string of events which had occurred whilst visiting him (the grandfather), and which certainly had never been mentioned in the interval” (Darwin, 1877; p. 291). Darwin’s apologetic comment probably indicated uncertainty about where such an observation fit in the overall scheme of intellectual development rather than a reasoned conviction that this type of data was unimportant. In fact, precisely these kinds of observations, more systematically recorded, have yielded fresh advances in our understanding of the development of memory in very young children.

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Authors
  1. Marvin W. Daehler
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  2. Carolyn Greco
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, N6A 5C2, London, Ontario, Canada

    Michael Pressley

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, T6G 2E9, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

    Charles J. Brainerd

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Daehler, M.W., Greco, C. (1985). Memory in Very Young Children. In: Pressley, M., Brainerd, C.J. (eds) Cognitive Learning and Memory in Children. Springer Series in Cognitive Development. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-9544-7_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-9544-7_2

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