Children remember childhood: implications for childhood amnesia

Whether events from early childhood are recalled as children grow older is a critical issue for understanding the development of autobiographical memory and the phenomenon of childhood amnesia. Sixteen white, middle-class 8-year-old children were asked about events that they had recalled in previous interviews when they were 40, 46, 58 or 70 months old. Children recalled most of the events about which they were asked, even those events that occurred in very early childhood. Moreover, children recalled the events accurately and with many details. However, children reported much new and different information about the events at age 8. Overall, girls recalled more information at age 8 than boys did. Surprisingly, there were no relationships between rehearsal and the amount of information children recalled at age 8, but it must be emphasized that all these events were frequently rehearsed at the time of occurrence. These results demonstrate remarkable memory over extended periods of time for events occurring in early childhood. Implications for childhood amnesia are discussed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rejoinder: Discussing culture and childhood

This comment agrees with Prof. Zuckerman that careful inquiry about the effects of culture, in terms of actual parental behaviors and some disparate subcultures, is warranted. It argues, however, that parental anxieties, based on a sense of children's vulnerability, affects even many remiss parents and explains widespread behaviors and areas of excessive supervision; the anxieties also may help account for an indifference to concerns about children in general as opposed to one's own offspring. The helicopter parent is a real and somewhat troubling phenomenon in the United States.     

The hierarchical structure of childhood personality in five countries: continuity from early childhood to early adolescence

Childhood personality is a rapidly growing area of investigation within individual differences research. One understudied topic is the universality of the hierarchical structure of childhood personality. In the present investigation, parents rated the personality characteristics of 3,751 children from 5 countries and 4 age groups. The hierarchical structure of childhood personality was examined for 1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-factor models across country (Canada, China, Greece, Russia, and the United States) and age group (3-5, 6-8, 9-11, and 12-14 years of age). Many similarities were noted across both country and age. The Five-Factor Model was salient beginning in early childhood (ages 3-5). Deviations across groups and from adult findings are noted, including the prominent role of antagonism in childhood personality and the high covariation between Conscientiousness and intellect. Future directions, including the need for more explicit attempts to merge temperament and personality models, are discussed.     

Medial temporal lobe memory in childhood: developmental transitions

The medial temporal lobes (MTL) support declarative memory and mature structurally and functionally during the postnatal years in humans. Although recent work has addressed the development of declarative memory in early childhood, less is known about continued development beyond this period of time. The purpose of this investigation was to explore MTL‐dependent memory across middle childhood. Children (6 –10 years old) and adults completed two computerized tasks, place learning (PL) and transitive inference (TI), that each examined relational memory, as well as the flexible use of relational learning. Findings suggest that the development of relational memory precedes the development of the ability to use relational knowledge flexibly in novel situations. Implications for the development of underlying brain areas and ideas for future neuroimaging investigations are discussed.     

Conscience in childhood: old questions, new answers

Although conscience has been the focus of reflection for centuries, fundamental questions regarding its organization have not been fully answered. To address those questions, the authors applied structural equation modeling techniques to longitudinal data comprising multiple behavioral measures of children's conscience, obtained in parallel fashion at 33 and 45 months. The measures encompassed moral emotion (guilt and empathic distress) and rule-compatible conduct (internalization of maternal prohibitions and requests and of another adult's rules). Confirmatory factor analyses supported a differentiated view of conscience with 2 latent factors at both ages: Moral Emotion and Rule-Compatible Conduct. The structure of conscience was remarkably stable over time. The coherence between Moral Emotion and Rule-Compatible Conduct factors increased as children grew older.     

Psychopathic-like traits in childhood: conceptual and measurement concerns

Can psychopathy be identified in pre-adolescent children? This question has both theoretical and practical implications. So far, attempts to answer this question have been made by making downward extensions of symptoms of the disorder as found in adults. We argue that for the construct of psychopathy to be viable as a construct in childhood it is necessary to demonstrate that a coherent syndrome of symptoms can be identified during childhood. To achieve this it is necessary first to use a strong measurement model, and second to use developmentally informed conceptualizations of key constructs. In order to progress from the measurement perspective, it is necessary to demonstrate (i) configural invariance of symptoms across key ages, (ii) similar performance of age cognate symptoms across key ages, and (iii) stability of relative standing on the latent trait across age. Novel techniques including item response methods and structural equation modelling techniques are required. In this paper, we review the relevant literature and evaluate the strength, or otherwise, of the evidence that key traits of psychopathy can be observed in childhood.     

Hyperactive and aggressive behaviors in childhood: Intertwined dimensions

The relationship between aggression and hyperactivity is unclear in childhood hyperkinesis. To examine the relationship between the two dimensions, a sample of 109 first-, second-, and third grade children who were rated as hyperactive were evaluated daily by their teachers for 12 consecutive school days on the Daily Behavior Checklist. Daily recordings were made on a total of 22 specific behaviors, 11 physically or verbally aggressive acts, and 11 acts of a restless or hyperactive nature. The Conners hyperactivity score correlated. 47 with daily aggression and .49 with daily hyperactivity. A subgroup of hyperactive children who exhibited both hyperactive and aggressive behaviors at rates greater than 98% of their classmates was selected. These children were rated significantly higher on the Conners scale than an alternate subgroup of hyperactive children who showed high rates of hyperactive but not aggressive behaviors. In view of heavy reliance on teacher ratings with the Conners scale in studies of hyperactivity, careful consideration of the potential confounding of hyperactivity and aggression is recommended. Implications for classification, longitudinal investigation, and evaluation of treatment of hyperactive children were discussed.     

Core multiplication in childhood

A dedicated, non-symbolic, system yielding imprecise representations of large quantities (approximate number system, or ANS) has been shown to support arithmetic calculations of addition and subtraction. In the present study, 5–7-year-old children without formal schooling in multiplication and division were given a task requiring a scalar transformation of large approximate numerosities, presented as arrays of objects. In different conditions, the required calculation was doubling, quadrupling, or increasing by a fractional factor (2.5). In all conditions, participants were able to represent the outcome of the transformation at above-chance levels, even on the earliest training trials. Their performance could not be explained by processes of repeated addition, and it showed the critical ratio signature of the ANS. These findings provide evidence for an untrained, intuitive process of calculating multiplicative numerical relationships, providing a further foundation for formal arithmetic instruction.     

Continuity in childhood depression

It is only in recent years that childhood depression has received widespread attention from mental health specialists. Its status as a clinical syndrome of childhood remains unclear. Many controversies surround various facets of this condition, foremost among these are questions relating to the duration of depressive disorders, the likelihood of recurrence, and the long-term outcome of depressed children. In the course of addressing these issues, attention is devoted to the outcomes as well as the advantages and disadvantages of commonly used research designs (prospective, retrospective, and catch-up prospective), the level of diagnosis used (symptom, syndrome, disorder), the significance of the age of onset on severity, and specific areas in need of further research. Among the tentative conclusions, it is asserted that many depressive symptoms are transient, diminishing or disappearing with age and/or changing environmental circumstances, but that severe depressive disorders do persist, with periods of remission, at least into the early adult years.     

Counterfactual reasoning: From childhood to adulthood

The objective of this study was to describe the developmental progression of counterfactual reasoning from childhood to adulthood. In contrast to the traditional view, it was recently reported by Rafetseder and colleagues that even a majority of 6-year-old children do not engage in counterfactual reasoning when asked counterfactual questions (Child Development, 2010, Vol. 81, pp. 376–389). By continuing to use the same method, the main result of the current Study 1 was that performance of the 9- to 11-year-olds was comparable to that of the 6-year-olds, whereas the 12- to 14-year-olds approximated adult performance. Study 2, using an intuitively simpler task based on Harris and colleagues (Cognition, 1996, Vol. 61, pp. 233–259), resulted in a similar conclusion, specifically that the ability to apply counterfactual reasoning is not fully developed in all children before 12 years of age. We conclude that children who failed our tasks seem to lack an understanding of what needs to be changed (events that are causally dependent on the counterfactual assumption) and what needs to be left unchanged and so needs to be kept as it actually happened. Alternative explanations, particularly executive functioning, are discussed in detail.     

The developing mind in action: measuring manual dynamics in childhood

Developmental theory has long emphasized the importance of linking perception, cognition, and action. Techniques designed to record the spatial and temporal characteristics of hand movements (i.e., manual dynamics) present new opportunities to study the nature of these links across development by providing a window into how perceptual, cognitive, and motoric processes interact and unfold over time. Although manual dynamics are commonly used to explore a range of topics with adults, including language processing, numerical cognition, social perception, and cognitive control, comparatively little research has used hand-tracking techniques to explore these topics with children. The current article aims to bring attention to this methodological gap and discuss how and why developmental researchers might want to address it. The article introduces two hand-tracking techniques, contrasts how the techniques have been used with adults relative to children, and explores how manual dynamics might fit into the broader landscape of research in child development.     

Earliest childhood memories: four theoretical perspectives

Four separate lines of thought relevant to a theory of early memories (EMs) have appeared in the literature--Freud's, Adler's, an ego psychology view and one adapted from memory theory, Each view was presented in turn and discussed in terms of its implications for assessment and treatment. It was pointed out that none of these four theories addresses several issues relevant to the individual who plans to do research with EMs.     

Biased attention in childhood Anxiety disorders: A preliminary study

This study provides preliminary tests of two hypotheses: (1) Anxiety-disordered children show an attentional bias toward emotionally threatening stimuli, and (2) normal controls show an attentional bias away from emotionally threatening stimuli. Twelve children, 9 to 14 years of age, with primary diagnoses of anxiety disorder were compared with 12 normal controls matched for age, gender, vocabulary level, and reading ability. Subjects completed a reaction time task that measured visual attention toward threatening versus neutral words. The anxious group showed the predicted attentional bias toward threat words. However, controls did not show the predicted bias away from threat words. These results are the first showing that biased attentional processing occurs among clinically anxious children. The potential role of such an attentional bias in childhood anxiety disorders and future direction for research are discussed.This research was supported by a Seed Grant and a Small Grant to the first author from The Ohio State University. Portions of this paper were presented at the 27th Annual Convention of the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy, Atlanta, November 1993. Thanks are extended to the participants and all those who helped with the project.     

Social anxiety disorder in childhood and adolescence: descriptive psychopathology

Although the presentation of social anxiety disorder (SAD) in adults is well documented, less is known about its clinical manifestation in children and adolescents. To date, most studies have included combined samples of children and adolescents despite the fact that this age range represents an extensive period of growth and development. This study compares and contrasts the clinical presentation of SAD among children (ages 7-12) and adolescents (ages 13-17). One hundred and fifty children (n=74) and adolescents (n=76) with a primary diagnosis of SAD participated in the study. The assessment battery included clinical ratings and behavioral observation as well as parental and self-report. The results indicate that, although the symptom presentation of children and adolescents with primary SAD shares many features, children tend to present with a broader pattern of general psychopathology, while adolescents have a more pervasive pattern of social dysfunction and may be more functionally impaired as a result of their disorder. These findings suggest that interventions for SAD need to carefully consider clinical presentation of the disorder as it manifests in childhood and adolescence.