Post-Traumatic Stress and Autobiographical Memory Accuracy in Young Children: Traumatic Events versus Stressful and Pleasant Events

ABSTRACT

This study examined the influence of trauma exposure and posttraumatic stress (PTS) severity on accuracy of recall of autobiographical memory of traumatic events and pleasant events in very young children. Two hundred sixteen 3–6 year-old children with trauma exposure were interviewed with standardized interviews. Forty-one non-trauma-exposed controls were interviewed about stressful events for comparison. Accuracy of recall for both traumatic and pleasant events was not associated with severity of PTS. Trauma-exposed children showed significantly less accurate recall of trauma events compared to pleasant events. This difference was limited to children who experienced repeated trauma or Hurricane Katrina-related trauma experiences as opposed to single-blow types of trauma experiences. There was no difference in accuracy of recall of trauma events in the trauma-exposed group versus stressful events in the control group. There was also no difference in accuracy of recall of pleasant events between the trauma-exposed and the control groups. These findings do not support traditional theories that autobiographical recall is impaired in those with posttraumatic stress disorder or with trauma exposure. These findings demonstrate that very young children have access to and can verbalize accurate autobiographical recall of trauma events, which is important for clinical assessment and treatment.

KEYWORDS:

• Trauma
• memory
• PTSD
• rehearsal
• autobiographical memory
• post-traumatic stress
• accuracy
• recall

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Robyn Fivush, Ph.D., for her invaluable advice on the interviewing procedures.

Disclosure statement

The second author receives royalties from Guilford Press, Central Recovery Press, and Psychology Today.

Ethical Standards and Informed Consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation [institutional and national] and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (R01 MH065884) awarded to Michael Scheeringa, Principal Investigator.

Notes on contributors

Catalina R. Pacheco

Catalina Pacheco, M.S., is a graduate student at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Michael S. Scheeringa, M.D., is Vice Chair of Research and Venancio Antonio Wander Garcia IV, MD Chair of Psychiatry at the Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, LA.