Longitudinal study of declarative and procedural memory in primary school‐aged children

This study examined the development of declarative and procedural memory longitudinally in primary school‐aged children. At present, although there is a general consensus that age‐related improvements during this period can be found for declarative memory, there are conflicting data on the developmental trajectory of the procedural memory system. At Time 1 children aged around 5½ years were presented with measures of declarative and procedural memory. The tasks were then administered 12 months later. Performance on the declarative memory task was found to improve at a faster rate in comparison to the procedural memory task. The findings of the study support the view that multiple memory systems reach functional maturity at different points in development.