TEACH YOUR CHILDREN TO REMEMBER

Can you remember anything before 4-year-old? 

Most people cannot remember anything from the first few years of their lives. 

This phenomenon is known as Infantile Amnesia - 

the seeming inability to recall information from early childhood.

? WHY CAN'T WE REMEMBER EVENTS FROM EARLY CHILDHOOD ?

Infants and toddlers encode information differently from adult. 

They recall memories by action patterns while adults or older children recall memories by symbol and language.

The inability to convert motor memories into verbal (symbol and language) ones prevents children from recalling events from infancy.

Children 'learn' to remember by sharing memories, which language makes possible.

Therefore, the ability of remembering events from the past will be influenced when language is not fully developed (most of us does not fully develop our language system before the age of four).

. TEACH YOUR CHILDREN TO REMEMBER .

Research shows that children who had the vocabulary to describe the event at the time of experience are able to talk and recall memories than those who don't (Simcock & Hayne, 2002).  

This proves that language play an important role in children's memory. 

Parents, who play the most important role in their own children's life, are responsible for their children's language development. 
Other than language, the everyday adult-child interactive play an important role in teaching children to remember too!

. TIPS IN TEACHING YOUR CHILDREN TO REMEMBER .

1. Ask who's, whats, whens, wheres of their experience.  

    Your children will learn to notice the important details of                 experiences and store their memories in an organized way.

2. Show photographs of what they may see in future events 
    (such as the coming holiday at Disney Land).

    It helps children to remember more about the event.

3. Ask repeated questions.
    By asking repeated questions, adults are structuring the     
    conversation, showing children how 'remembering' is done.

Young children recall as much information as older children do, but they need more memory questions in order to do so.
When your children cannot remember, give them some cue, or give them the right answer.

Memories define for us what we have done, who and what we know, and even who we are. 
What knowledge already resides in memory influences the ease with which new information is stored and later retrieved. 
Therefore, memory is indeed important to all of us, and of course, to our little precious one.