Children's long‐term retention of salient personal experiences

Research on young children's long‐term retention is reviewed in this article. More specifically, the abilities of 3‐ to 7‐year‐olds to remember the details of two types of medical experiences—a routine physical examination and an invasive radiological procedure—are discussed in the context of a framework for considering the flow of information in the developing memory system. The framework emphasizes four general themes about memory performance and provides a vehicle for relating research on memory development to discussions of children's testimony and adults' abilities to remember early experiences.