Predictors of age-related and individual variability in autobiographical memory in childhood

ABSTRACT

Development of autobiographical memory is as a gradual process beginning in early childhood and continuing through late adolescence. Substantial attention has been paid to early childhood when first personal memories are formed; less attention has been focused on the flourishing of memories from the late preschool years onward. We addressed this void with a three-year cohort-sequential study of age-related changes in the length, completeness, and coherence of autobiographical narratives by children 4–10 years. We also examined the unique and combined variance in autobiographical narrative explained by children’s own language, maternal narrative style, domain-general cognitive abilities, non-autobiographical story recall, and memory-specific skills. There was substantial growth in autobiographical narrative skill across the 4–10-year period. Non-autobiographical story recall was a strong concurrent and cross-lagged predictor for all autobiographical narrative measures. Memory-specific and domain-general cognitive abilities systematically predicted narrative completeness and coherence but not length. Children’s language and maternal narrative style did not contribute additional variance when these predictors were considered. The findings highlight that age-related changes in autobiographical memory are the results of combined contributions of a variety of domain-general and domain-specific predictors.

KEYWORDS:

• Autobiographical memory
• domain-general cognition
• narrative coherence
• narrative development
• story recall

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Melissa Burch, Evren Güler, and Tracy Riggins, for their assistance with aspects of the research, as well as members of the Cognition in the Transition laboratory (University of Minnesota) and Memory at Emory laboratory (Emory University) for their help at various stages of the research. They also express their deep and abiding gratitude to the children and families who took part in the longitudinal study, data from which are reported in this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The research reported in this manuscript was supported by the NIH HD28425 to Patricia J. Bauer.