Children's recollections of traumatic and nontraumatic events

Abstract

Whereas the social and emotional consequences of childhood trauma are well documented, less is known about how young children understand, represent, and remember traumatic experiences. A review of the literature indicates striking similarities in the development of young children's ability to recall traumatic and nontraumatic events. More specifically, events experienced before the age of about 18 months do not seem to be verbally accessible; events experienced between about 18 months and 2.5–3 years are reported in fragmentary fashion and seem to be prone to increasing error over time. From about age 3 years on, children can give reasonably coherent accounts of their past experiences and can retain these memories over long durations. The ways in which children are able to participate in conversations about events as they are occurring and in retrospect seems to play a critical role in their developing event memories. Implications of the empirical data for understanding trauma memory in childhood are discussed.