Research on Talking About the Past: The Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

Research on mother–child reminiscing about previously experienced events carried out over the last 20 years indicates clear linkages between mothers' use of an elaborative conversational style and children's developing skills for remembering. The articles that comprise this special issue utilize both longitudinal designs and experimental methods, focus on social-emotional as well as cognitive outcomes, consider the family as the unit of analysis, and examine the continuing impact of reminiscing in adolescence. Taken as a collection, the work presented here advances our understanding of the impact of reminiscing on development. In this introduction to the special issue, we sketch the central themes, as we see them, in past, present, and future research on reminiscing.