The Effects of Mother Training in Emotion-Rich, Elaborative Reminiscing on Children's Shared Recall and Emotion Knowledge

Abstract

The present study examined the impact of training mothers in high-elaborative, emotional reminiscing on children's autobiographical memory and emotion knowledge. Eighty mothers were randomly allocated to one of two training conditions: in the reminiscing condition, mothers were encouraged to reminisce by asking their children (aged 3.5 to 5 years) elaborative Wh- questions, providing detailed descriptions, and discussing emotions, and in the control condition, mothers were encouraged to play by following their children's lead. Forty-four mothers completed the study. Both immediately and 6 months after training, mothers in the reminiscing condition and their children each made more high-elaborative utterances and emotion references during shared recall than did mothers in the control condition and their children. Children of reminiscing mothers also showed better emotion cause knowledge after 6 months than did children of control mothers, but children's independent recall to an experimenter did not differ according to condition. The findings suggest that an elaborative and emotion-rich reminiscing style can be taught to parents, with potential benefits for children's shared (but not independent) memory contributions and for emotion knowledge development.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This project was funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (DP0450605) awarded to Karen Salmon and Mark R. Dadds.

Notes

¹When yes/no questions were considered high rather than low elaborative, the time × condition interaction and condition main effects were each significant for mothers' high-elaborative utterances (i.e., Wh- questions, information statements, and yes/no questions, summed), Fs > 8.67, ps < .05, s < .21, but the time main effect was not, F(1, 43) = 0.50, p > .05. There were no significant effects for mothers' low-elaborative utterances (i.e., repetitions), Fs < 1.70, ps > .05.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Penny Van Bergen

Penny Van Bergen is now at the Department of Education, Macquarie University, Australia.

Karen Salmon

Karen Salmon is now at the School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

Jennifer Allen

Jennifer Allen is now at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, United Kingdom.