Elaine Reese

Mother-Child Conversations About the Past: Relationships of Style and Memory Over Time

This study investigated long-term consistency and change in maternal style for talk about the past and relationships of those styles with childrens memory participation. Nineteen white, middle-class mother-child dyads talked about shared past events at four time points: when children were 40, 46, 58, and 70 months of age. Across the four time points, individual mothers could be consistently classified as high elaborative (e.g., they elaborated on event information much more often than they repeated their requests) or low elaborative (e.g., they elaborated less often in relation to their repetitions). However, all mothers became more elaborative over time; children also remembered more over time. Cross-lagged correlations revealed a relationship between maternal elaborativeness at the early time points and childrens later memory responding, but by the later time points, direction of influence between maternal elaborations and childrens memory responding had become bidirectional. These results are framed with respect to the importance of shared past event conversations for the development of childrens autobiographical memory.

Origins of Autobiographical Memory.

This study tested the predictions of M. L. Howe and M. L. Courages (1993, 1997) theory of infantile amnesia compared with a social-interactionist account of autobiographical memory development (R. Fivush & E. Reese, 1992; K. Nelson, 1993b). Fifty-eight mother-child dyads were assessed for maternal styles of talking about the past and for childrens self-recognition, language production, and nonverbal memory when the children were 19 months old. Childrens shared and independent memory reports were then assessed from 19 to 32 months. Maternal reminiscing style and self-recognition uniquely predicted childrens shared memory reports across time, even with childrens initial language and nonverbal memory factored out. Self-recognition skills also predicted childrens later independent memory. These results support a pluralistic account of the origins of autobiographical memory.

Maternal Style and Children's Participation in Reminiscing: Stepping Stones in Children's Autobiographical Memory Development

In this study we investigated maternal and child factors in childrens autobiographical memory development. Fifty-eight mother-child dyads discussed unique past events when the children were 19, 25, 32, and 40 months old. In addition, children participated in experimenter-child interviews about unique events when they were 25, 32, and 40 months old. The developmental progression to childrens independent verbal memory begins with childrens early interest in participating in the conversations and maternal reminiscing style, which together elicit childrens later shared memory elaborations. Subsequently, childrens shared memory elaborations and maternal reminiscing style both contribute to childrens later independent memory at approximately 3 1/2 years of age. We address the idea that autobiographical memory development is essentially a collaborative process, with children significantly contributing to the development of their own reminiscing style from its inception.

Social factors in the development of autobiographical memory: The state of the art.

This review addresses theory and research on the role of self understanding, language, theory of mind, attachment security, and parental style in children’s autobiographical memory development. Social-cognitive factors appear to interact with parental style in producing children’s first verbal memories. Emotional factors, such as attachment security, may also prove to be critical for the socialization of life histories. Further longitudinal studies will be necessary to examine individual differences in the growth of this complex and multiply determined skill.

Emotional Reminiscing and the Development of an Autobiographical Self

According to autobiographical memory theorists, past event conversations provide children with a framework for evaluating and connecting past events into a coherent autobiography (R. Fivush, 1994; K. Nelson, 1993; M. K. Welch-Ross, 1995). Two studies were conducted to empirically examine the association between past event conversation style and an independent measure of childrens self-concept consistency. In Study 1, 50 New Zealand mothers discussed everyday past events with their children at 51 and 65 months of age. In Study 2, 51 New Zealand parents discussed 1 positive and 3 negative past events with their 5- and 6-year-old children. The consistency of childrens self-views was assessed in both studies using the Childrens Self-View Questionnaire (R. Eder, 1990). Childrens self-concept consistency was moderately associated with greater explanation of the causes and consequences of childrens negative emotions, resolution through social contact, and evaluation of positive events but not with simple attributions of emotion. These findings implicate parent-child conversations as a medium through which children can begin to understand the personal meaning of past experiences.

A Review of Parent Interventions for Preschool Children's Language and Emergent Literacy.

It is well known that children’s language development lays the foundation for their literacy development, though it is difficult for preschool teachers alone to consistently engage in the individual interactions necessary to boost children’s language skills. Given that parents are their children’s first teachers, it is imperative to consider how parents can help improve their children’s language and emergent literacy development prior to formal schooling. This article reviews parent-training studies of children’s language and literacy in three contexts: parent—child book-reading; parent—child conversations; and parent—child writing. Parent training in each of these contexts has the capacity to improve children’s language and literacy, with the effects being specific to the targeted skill. All three contexts are potentially valuable sites for training parents to help their children’s language and literacy. In conclusion, parents are an undertapped resource for improving children’s language and literacy.

Coherence of Personal Narratives Across the Lifespan: A Multidimensional Model and Coding Method

Personal narratives are integral to autobiographical memory and to identity, with coherent personal narratives being linked to positive developmental outcomes across the lifespan. In this article, we review the theoretical and empirical literature that sets the stage for a new lifespan model of personal narrative coherence. This new model integrates context, chronology, and theme as essential dimensions of personal narrative coherence, each of which relies upon different developmental achievements and has a different developmental trajectory across the lifespan. A multidimensional method of coding narrative coherence (the Narrative Coherence Coding Scheme) was derived from the model and is described here. The utility of this approach is demonstrated by its application to 498 narratives that were collected in six laboratories from participants ranging in age from 3 years old to adulthood. The value of the model is illustrated further by a discussion of its potential to guide future research on the developmental foundations of narrative coherence and on the benefits of personal narrative coherence for different aspects of psychological functioning.

Evaluations and orientations in mother–child narratives as a function of attachment security: A longitudinal investigation:

The present study examined the socialisation of children’s narrative ability across the preschool period, exploring the association between children’s and mothers’ narrative style and children’s attachment security. Fifty-six children and their mothers engaged in past event memory conversations about everyday shared past experiences when the children were aged 19, 25, 32, 40, and 51 months. At 19 months, mothers completed the Attachment Q-Set (Version 3.0) as a measure of children’s attachment security. Importantly, the results showed different patterns of narrative use and socialisation as a function of children’s attachment security. Specifically, securely attached children and their mothers used more evaluations over time, had a more consistent narrative style, and had more bidirectional influences. We clarify the narrative socialisation process and discuss the link between attachment and narrative.

Reminiscing and recounting in the preschool years

Talk about past events can be classified as either reminiscing (discussing shared experiences) or recounting (discussing unshared experiences). Reminiscing may have more of a social memory function whereas recounting may also be informational. This research focused on the form of mother–child reminiscing and recounting during the preschool years. Twenty 40-month-old and 20 58-month-old children reminisced and recounted past events with their mothers. Results showed that mothers who provided more memory information during reminiscing and requested more memory information during recounting had children who reported more unique information about the events. Regardless of maternal conversational style, however, children reported more unique memory information during recounting than reminiscing. We discuss these results in terms of the importance of both forms of remembering for autobiographical memory development. Copyright

Maternal Reminiscing Style During Early Childhood Predicts the Age of Adolescents' Earliest Memories

Individual differences in parental reminiscing style are hypothesized to have long-lasting effects on childrens autobiographical memory development, including the age of their earliest memories. This study represents the first prospective test of this hypothesis. Conversations about past events between 17 mother-child dyads were recorded on multiple occasions between the childrens 2nd and 4th birthdays. When these children were aged 12-13 years, they were interviewed about their early memories. Adolescents whose mothers used a greater ratio of elaborations to repetitions during the early childhood conversations had earlier memories than adolescents whose mothers used a smaller ratio of elaborations to repetitions. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that past-event conversations during early childhood have long-lasting effects on autobiographical memory.