Strategy utilization deficiencies in children: when, where, and why

Improving children's ability to remember intentions: a literature review on strategies to improve prospective memory during childhood

Children often fail to remember executing intentions because prospective memory (PM) does not completely develop until late adolescence or young adulthood. PM failures are often observed in children and can have negative consequences on their everyday lives. Thus, in the last 50 years, various strategies to support children's PM have been designed and evaluated, such as prompting children to use different encoding modalities, such as verbal, visual, and enacted modalities, or encoding strategies, such as implementation intentions, episodic future thinking (EFT), and performance predictions, as well as providing children with verbal and visual reminders. However, not all these interventions have shown to efficiently enhance PM performance during childhood. The present literature review is aimed at summarizing these interventions and critically examining their effectiveness from a developmental perspective and by considering underlying mechanisms. The type of PM task (event-, time-, and activity-based), cognitive resource demands, and processing overlaps are also considered. Finally, directions for future research and possible applications in everyday life will be discussed.

Indirect Associations Between Self-Rated Alertness and Recall via Strategic and Nonstrategic Factors

Excessive daytime sleepiness is associated with reduced cognitive functioning in children and adolescents. The present study was an initial examination of direct and indirect associations between sleep and recall via strategic and nonstrategic memory processes in a sample of 66 participants from grades 1, 3, 5, and college. Stimuli varied in familiarity and presence of a strategy prompt. Strategy use during encoding and during recall were measured separately. The present study predicted that alertness would be associated with both strategic and nonstrategic factors related to memory, alertness would predict recall indirectly via strategic and nonstrategic factors (controlling for grade and gender), and this indirect path would be moderated by grade. The first 2 hypotheses were partially supported; the third was not. Self-reported alertness associated weakly with speed of tapping and with strategy use during encoding on the first trial (familiar words, no strategy cue). Analysis indicated an indirect effect via strategy use during encoding on Trial 1 but via speed of tapping on Trial 3. Tests of moderated mediation were not significant on any trial, indicating that the indirect pathways were not moderated by grade. Alertness may influence recall via strategic or nonstrategic processes, and its role may depend on familiarity and availability of strategy cues. Several proposed research directions are suggested for future exploration.

Bilingual Children's Narrative Comprehension: Do Pauses during Retelling Buy Time for Understanding?

This study extended research on bilingual children's narrative comprehension to text processing during retelling. A cross- and monolinguistic design allowed for the investigation of the association of various aspects of narrative comprehension with two types of pause occurring during oral retelling of a story heard in one language and retold in a second or in the same language. A sample of 95 bilingual (L1 German/L2 English) fourth-graders participated in the experiment. Comprehension was predominantly accomplished during listening, as children with L1 input outperformed children with L2 input, but they did not benefit from L1 in retelling. Children's comprehension performance and corresponding pause patterns suggested that the duration of filled pauses dedicated to gist formation indicated efficiency of comprehension: The duration decreased with increasing comprehension. The findings allowed the conclusion that longer pauses during retelling did not buy time for comprehension.

Nearest transfer effects of working memory training: A comparison of two programs focused on working memory updating

This study analyzed the mechanisms involved in possible transfer effects for two different working memory updating (WMU) training programs administered to young adults and based on two updating paradigms: n-back and arithmetical updating. The influence of practice distribution on transfer effects was also explored by including two training regimens: massed and spaced practice. Performance on different WMU tasks more or less structurally similar to the tasks used in the training was assessed to analyze the nearest transfer effects. Near and far transfer effects were tested using complex working memory (WM) and fluid intelligence tasks. The results showed that the WMU training produced gains in only some of the WMU tasks structurally similar to those used in the training, not in those lacking the same structure, or in WM or fluid intelligence tasks. These limited nearest transfer effects suggest that gains could be due to the acquisition of a specific strategy appropriate for the task during the training rather than to any improvement in the updating process per se. Performance did not differ depending on the training regimen.

Put your hands up! Gesturing improves preschoolers' executive function

This study addressed the causal direction of a previously reported relation between preschoolers' gesturing and their executive functioning on the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) sorting-switch task. Gesturing the relevant dimension for sorting was induced in a Gesture group through instructions, imitation, and prompts. In contrast, the Control group was instructed to "think hard" when sorting. Preschoolers (N = 50) performed two DCCS tasks: (a) sort by size and then spatial orientation of two objects and (b) sort by shape and then proximity of the two objects. An examination of performance over trials permitted a fine-grained depiction of patterns of younger and older children in the Gesture and Control conditions. After the relevant dimension was switched, the Gesture group had more accurate sorts than the Control group, particularly among younger children on the second task. Moreover, the amount of gesturing predicted the number of correct sorts among younger children on the second task. The overall association between gesturing and sorting was not reflected at the level of individual trials, perhaps indicating covert gestural representation on some trials or the triggering of a relevant verbal representation by the gesturing. The delayed benefit of gesturing, until the second task, in the younger children may indicate a utilization deficiency. Results are discussed in terms of theories of gesturing and thought. The findings open up a new avenue of research and theorizing about the possible role of gesturing in emerging executive function.

Episodic future thinking improves children's prospective memory performance in a complex task setting with real life task demands

Research on children's prospective memory (PM) shows an increase of performance across childhood and provides first evidence that encoding strategies such as episodic future thinking (EFT; i.e., engaging in a vivid prospection of oneself performing future tasks) may improve performance. The present study aimed at testing whether the beneficial effects of EFT extend from typical lab-based tasks to more complex tasks with real life demands. Further, it was tested whether children's ability to project themselves into different perspectives (i.e., self-projection) moderates the effects of EFT encoding on PM. Overall, 56 children (mean age: M = 10.73 years) were included in this study who were randomly assigned to either an EFT or control condition. Children participated in a 'sightseeing tour' (ongoing activity) inside the lab with various socially relevant and neutral PM tasks embedded. Results showed significantly higher PM performance in the EFT compared to the control group. There was no difference between neutral and social PM tasks and no interaction between type of PM tasks with encoding condition. Further, self-projection did not moderate the effects of EFT encoding on PM. Results suggest that EFT is an effective strategy to improve children's everyday PM. These beneficial effects seem to occur independent from children's general ability to change perspectives and for different types of PM tasks.

Research on memory development: Historical trends and current themes

This article presents a survey of research on memory development conducted within the last 120 years. It begins with an examination of historical trends and then focuses on developmental trends over the last three decades. The article concludes with some predictions of future research activities and trends in this classic domain of cognitive development.

Effects of Motivation on Young Children's Object Recall and Strategy Use

The study was designed to examine the effects of motivation on young children's recall for object names and early-emerging mnemonic activities. Seventy-two 4-year-old children were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 instructional conditions: incidental, intentional, or motivational. Each child was shown 10 small toy objects and provided a 90 s study period prior to recall. The children's mnemonic behaviors were videotaped for subsequent coding. The children in the incidental condition were instructed to simply look at the toys while children in the intentional and motivational condition were given explicit instructions to remember. The motivational group was also told that they could keep whichever toys they remembered. A recognition memory task was employed to examine the extent to which the stimuli were encoded during the study period. The children's recall memory did not vary as a function of instructional condition. Children's use of singular versus multiple strategies was calculated, along with a weighted summary score giving most weight to the participant's use of mature mnemonic strategies. Significant differences in strategy use were found, favoring the motivational condition. Significant positive correlations were found between the weighted summary scores and object recall, and the teacher ratings of mastery motivation and object recall. Mastery motivation was found to be unrelated to the strategic summary scores, failing to mediate strategic behaviors. The results suggest that when providing incentives to remember, children apparently engaged in more effortful mnemonic processing in order to remember the items, even though a greater number of items were not recalled.

Feminist theory and contemporary developmental psychology: The case of children’s executive function

Burman’s landmark book, Deconstructing Developmental Psychology, criticized the field from three perspectives: decontextualized measurements and depictions of children’s behavior; androcentric biases; and covert political frameworks. In this article, Burman’s analysis is applied to the current state of cognitive developmental research in general, and then specifically with a focus on a hot topic, children’s executive function (cognitive self-control). Suggestions are made for how adopting Burman’s framework to deconstruct executive function research and theorizing can be used to construct an enriched, more complete, account of the development of executive function.

How do you learn to walk? Thousands of steps and dozens of falls per day

A century of research on the development of walking has examined periodic gait over a straight, uniform path. The current study provides the first corpus of natural infant locomotion derived from spontaneous activity during free play. Locomotor experience was immense: Twelve- to 19-month-olds averaged 2,368 steps and 17 falls per hour. Novice walkers traveled farther faster than expert crawlers, but had comparable fall rates, which suggests that increased efficiency without increased cost motivates expert crawlers to transition to walking. After walking onset, natural locomotion improved dramatically: Infants took more steps, traveled farther distances, and fell less. Walking was distributed in short bouts with variable paths--frequently too short or irregular to qualify as periodic gait. Nonetheless, measures of periodic gait and of natural locomotion were correlated, which indicates that better walkers spontaneously walk more and fall less. Immense amounts of time-distributed, variable practice constitute the natural practice regimen for learning to walk.

The memory is in the details: relations between memory for the specific features of events and long-term recall during infancy

The second year of life is marked by pronounced changes in the length of time over which events are remembered. We tested whether the age-related differences are related to differences in memory for the specific features of events. In our study, 16- and 20-month-olds were tested for immediate and long-term recall of individual actions and temporal order of actions of three-step sequences in an elicited imitation paradigm as well as for forced-choice recognition of the specific feature of the props used to produce the sequences. Memory for the props was related to long-term recall of the events only for the 20-month-olds. It accounted for unique variance above and beyond the variance explained by immediate recall of the individual actions and the temporal order of actions of the sequences. The different pattern of relations in the older and younger infants seemingly reflects a developmental difference in the determinants of long-term recall over the second year of life.

The Effects of Self- and Other-Scaffolding on Progression and Variation in Children’s Geometric Analogy Performance: A Microgenetic Research

The study investigated geometric analogical reasoning in 8-year-old children by microgenetically examining the (transfer) effects of self- and other-scaffolding and memory capacity on progression and variation in children’s analogy performance. Participants were 54 children, divided over three conditions, and followed for 5 weeks. Children’s initial performances showed a wide strategy repertoire. A number of children profited from repeated self-scaffolding and increased their strategy use considerably. A 20-minute graduated-prompts other-scaffolding procedure promoted strategy use beyond the effects of self-scaffolding, inducing either continuation of gradual change or a rapid change in analogical reasoning. Distinct change trajectories showed individual differences regarding timing and rate of change. There was evidence of transfer of analogy strategies between geometric and verbal tasks. Children with a larger memory capacity remained at higher levels of geometric analogical reasoning. Children with smaller memory capacities fully caught up with their peers with a larger memory capacity after other-scaffolding.

Naher und weiter Transfer eines Unterrichtsprogramms zur Förderung der Lesekompetenz in der Sekundarstufe I

Zusammenfassung: Ein Unterrichtsprogramm zur Vermittlung von Lesestrategien wurde in den regulären Deutschunterricht der 5. Jahrgangsstufe implementiert. Untersucht wurden Effekte auf das Wissen über Lesestrategien sowie ein Transfer auf Situationen außerhalb des Unterrichtsprogramms. Hierfür kamen ein standardisierter Leseverstehenstest sowie einfache mathematische Textaufgaben zum Einsatz. An der Untersuchung nahmen insgesamt 24 Schulklassen (n = 617 Schüler) aus fünf Gymnasien und einer Gesamtschule teil. In 15 Klassen (n = 387 Schüler) wurde das Unterrichtsprogramm durchgeführt, neun Kontrollklassen (n = 230 Schüler) erhielten regulären Deutschunterricht. Während für das Lesestrategiewissen deutliche Effekte des Programms zu beobachten waren, gab es beim Leseverstehen und beim Lösen von Textaufgaben keine signifikanten Unterschiede zwischen Experimental- und Kontrollklassen. Es liegt jedoch ein spezifischer Transfereffekt vor: Diejenigen Schüler der Experimentalgruppe, die sich zwischen Prä- und Posttest im Leseverstehenstest verbessert haben, zeigen im Anschluss an die Programmdurchführung beim Lösen von Textaufgaben signifikant höhere Zuwächse.

Developmental issues in school-based aggression prevention from a social-cognitive perspective

Contemporary research on the development and prevention of aggressive behavior in childhood and adolescence emphasizes the importance of social-cognitive factors such as perceptual biases, problem-solving skills, and social-moral beliefs in the maintenance of aggression. Indeed, school-based social-cognitive intervention approaches have been identified as best practices by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, because child age is an important covariate of both intervention effectiveness and social-cognitive ability, school-based prevention program designers should keep in mind a number of issues identified through developmental research. In this paper, we review the social-cognitive model of aggressive behavior development as applied to prevention programming. We then discuss some of the ways in which the broader developmental research base can inform the design of aggression prevention programs. EDITORS' STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS: Educational administrators and policy makers will find evidence in this review that school-based programs that employ a social-cognitive model represent a strategy that works for preventing violence. Prevention researchers will also benefit from the authors' insights regarding theoretical mediating processes and the importance of a developmental view.

Entwicklungsveränderungen des strategischen Gedächtnisses beim Übergang vom Kindergarten in die Grundschule

Zusammenfassung. Es werden erste Ergebnisse einer Längsschnittstudie zur Entwicklung des verbalen Gedächtnisses beim Übergang vom Vorschul- in das Grundschulalter beschrieben, die auf den beiden ersten Messzeitpunkten der Studie basieren. Im Mittelpunkt steht dabei die Entwicklung strategischer Kompetenzen am Beispiel semantischer Organisationsaufgaben (sort-recall). Für eine Stichprobe von ca. 100 Kindergartenkindern ließ sich zeigen, dass der Aufbau strategischen Verhaltens von Anfang an eng mit dem Erwerb metakognitiven Wissens verknüpft ist. Im Unterschied zu anderen Gedächtnisaufgaben (Arbeits- oder Textgedächtnis) wurden für den Übergang von der Kindergarten- in die frühe Grundschulphase nur relativ niedrige Langzeitstabilitäten registriert, was als Indiz dafür anzusehen ist, dass sich der Strategie-Erwerb rapide und für unterschiedliche Kinder unterschiedlich schnell vollzieht. Es ließen sich zudem Geschlechtseffekte in dem Sinne nachweisen, dass die Gedächtnisleistung der Mädchen in der semantischen Kategorisierungsaufgabe im Vergleich zu der der Jungen schneller anstieg und zu einem Gedächtnisvorteil bei der zweiten Messung führte.

Entwicklung effektiver Abrufhemmung bei Grundschulkindern:

Zusammenfassung. Studien mit der Listenmethode des “Directed Forgetting“-Paradigmas zeigen Probleme von Schulanfängern mit der Abrufhemmung. In der vorliegenden Studie wurde jeweils 120 Erst- und Viertklässlern zunächst eine von zwei Lernlisten dargeboten. Anschließend erhielten sie entweder einen allgemeinen Behaltenshinweis oder einen Vergessenshinweis unter einer von vier Bedingungen, die sich aus der Kombination der beiden Faktoren “Vergessensmotivierung“ und “Vermittlung von Vergessenseinsicht“ ergeben. Es folgte die Darbietung der zweiten Liste, bevor die Kinder zum Reproduzieren beider Listen aufgefordert wurden. Im Unterschied zur einschlägigen Literatur fand sich auch für Erstklässler bereits unter der einfachen Vergessensaufforderung der anhand verschiedener Kriterien bewertete “Directed Forgetting“-Effekt (schlechteres Erinnern der mit Vergessenshinweis versehenen Items). Unabhängig vom Alter der Grundschulkinder zeigte sich ein deutlicher Einfluss der Einsichtsvermittlung auf das Ausmaß dieses Effektes. Die Befunde werden im Hinblick auf die Qualität der Abrufhemmung bei Schulanfängern diskutiert.

Young children's organizational strategies on a same-different task: A microgenetic study and a training study

This study was designed to explore young children's strategy development using a new kind of "same-different" task that minimized memory demands. Four-year-old children were asked to judge whether 2 sets of 7 toys were the same or different. Sets were identical or differed by one toy, with one set presented on a table and the other in a linen bag. Children's spontaneous behavior was highly strategic, and over trials it developed differently for "same" and "different" trials. Most children who did not spontaneously use the most effective strategy, that is, matching, could be trained to do so and were able to transfer this strategy to new materials. Results concerning production and utilization deficiencies are discussed in relation to task characteristics, trial type (same or different), and findings from prior research.

The impact of severe asthma on schoolchildren

Episodic airway obstruction and hypoxia are potentially life-threatening to children with asthma and may account for neuropsychological impairment. Moreover, living with this chronic disease may severely disrupt children's emotional functioning. The general functioning of 25 children with severe asthma aged 10-13 years was tested by a comparison with 25 matched normal controls. Testing included variables with relevance to normal daily functioning: memory, concentration, school performance, physical condition, subjective symptoms after exercise, and negative emotions. The results showed that children with asthma did not significantly deviate from controls. They reported more dyspnea after physical exercise, which could not be attributed to lung function. Differences in school performance were not significant. It was concluded that children may generally adapt well to living with asthma.

Contemplating fuzzy-trace theory: the gist of it

Brainerd and Reyna (1998, this issue) have described fuzzy-trace theory as a basic-processing theory, emphasizing age differences in children's disposition to use verbatim versus gist representations. The theoretical climate of the 1980's, when fuzzy-trace theory was first formulated, is described. Fuzzy-trace theory integrated new ideas about how cognitive development was viewed into a coherent framework, which only gradually gained acceptance as critical aspects of the theory were confirmed, counterintuitive findings were predicted and demonstrated, and other researchers began applying the theory. Fuzzy-trace theory converges with other contemporary theoretical accounts in raising the general issue of the relation between two developing representational systems and is consistent with the idea that immature (a bias toward verbatim encoding) and mature (a bias toward gist encoding) have both advantages and disadvantages at different times in development. By integrating the theory with ideas from social-contextual perspectives, the theory may have a greater impact in the future for issues of social significance.

Fuzzy-trace theory and false memory: new frontiers

We describe the origins of fuzzy-trace theory, including Piagetian, interference, information-processing, and judgment and decision-making influences. The contrasting properties of gist and verbatim memory serve as its foundation and, in recent models of spontaneous and implanted false memories, explain seemingly contradictory developmental trends, such as reverse developmental findings, differential time courses for true and false memories, and conflicting effects of trace strength. However, approaches that integrate fuzzy-trace theory with neurological, social, emotional, and motivational perspectives are needed. A method for accomplishing this integration, using the recent models, is introduced and new research that spans these perspectives is discussed. Relations to other contemporary theories, especially source-monitoring and dual-process theories, are also explained. We conclude by rejecting the notion that spontaneous false memories are actually "true" and distinguish gist and verbatim senses of the term "true" that have different consequences in real life.

Knowing what to remember and forget: a developmental study of cue memory in intentional forgetting

These experiments are the first to investigate children's encoding and use of information about a memory cue in Bjork's (1972) intentional forgetting task. In Experiment 1, children in Grades 2, 4, and 6 and college students were given cues to either remember or forget after the presentation of each picture. Recall and recognition tests of pictures and cues followed. The procedure in Experiment 2 was identical to that in Experiment 1 except that the list of presentation pictures was altered for some children (Grades 3 and 4) and adolescents (Grades 8 and 9) so that remember and forget cues were associated with particular taxonomic categories. In Experiment 3, the testing component was modified so that children (Grades 2, 3, and 4) and college students were asked to recall only the cue associated with each picture. The results indicated that (1) children as young as second graders encode the cue associated with each picture, although to a lesser extent than do college students, (2) much improvement in intentional forgetting is still occurring during adolescence, (3) only adults adequately cluster their recall by cue, (4) associating remember and forget cues with items from different categories does not increase the differentiation between cues, and (5) eliminating picture recall and recognition has minimal effects on the magnitude of cue judgments. These results suggest that children's difficulties on intentional forgetting tasks stem, at least in part, from their poorer encoding of information about whether an item should be remembered or forgotten.

Temporal organization in children's strategy formation

It is well established that children use study behaviors such as card sorting, category naming, and item-by-item rehearsal to assist subsequent word recall. In this article, we provide evidence that these behaviors are organized into coherent temporal patterns. Fourier analyses of individual behaviors over a sequence of five consecutive study/recall trials indicated that sorting was synchronized with the start of each trial, whereas rehearsal tended to occur later in each trial. Fourier analyses of pairs of behaviors indicated that sorting and category naming, both concerned with categorization of the to-be-remembered words, co-occurred early in each trial at a greater rate than expected based on their individual frequencies of occurrence (i.e., they were used cooperatively). In contrast, verbal rehearsal of individual words co-occurred with both sorting and category naming at a lesser rate than would be expected based on their individual frequencies of occurrence. The results thus point to a global strategy in which children learn the items' categories before they learn them individually. There was little apparent qualitative difference in temporal organization for second- and fourth-grade children. However, sorting early in each trial was more pronounced for children with better word recall (regardless of grade), and the suppressed co-occurrence of rehearsal with sorting and category naming (i.e., keeping category learning temporally separate from item learning) was more pronounced for the fourth-grade children.

Developmental differences in rule learning: a microgenetic analysis

Trial-by-trial strategy assessments and a microgenetic design were used to examine 4- and 5-year-olds' learning of rules for solving balance scale problems. The design allowed us to examine simultaneously the contribution to rule learning of distal variables (qualities and knowledge with which children enter the learning situation) and proximal variables (processes that they execute during learning). Developmental differences in learning arose through two distal variables that were correlated with age--initial rule use and initial encoding-helping older children to execute several proximal processes--noticing the potential explanatory role of a key variable, formulating a more advanced rule, and generalizing and maintaining the rule. Joint consideration of distal and proximal influences seems likely to be generally useful for understanding learning and development.

Young children's use of spatial cues to organize and recall object names

This experiment was designed to determine whether children between 4 and 8 years old make use of spatial cues to organize and facilitate their retrieval of object names in a free-recall task. Twenty boys and 20 girls at each of 3 grade levels (preschool, 1, and 3) were individually shown 9 small toy objects (either categorizable or unrelated) presented in a randomly arranged circular array. Three stand-up pictures of a bed, a couch, and a storage cabinet served as pretend hiding places for the presented stimuli. After a brief viewing period, the experimenter removed the objects from the child's view, left the location props in place, and asked for recall. Analyses of recall and clustering (ARC) scores showed significant grade-related improvements for item-recall scores and spatial-retrieval clustering scores, but not for taxonomic clustering scores. Spatial clustering scores were significantly above chance for 1st- and 3rd-grade children, but taxonomic clustering scores remained at chance levels for all grades.

Instructional and contextual effects on eternal memory strategy use in young children

Young children's ability to devise external representations in problem-solving tasks has not been fully examined. The present two experiments investigated children's creation and use of external representations (i.e., external representation strategies) in different conditions. In each experiment, 4- and 6-year-old children listened to a series of sentences (e.g., "The doll is on the table") and were required to remember where to place the objects named in the sentences. In Experiment 1, direct training increased the use of external representations. When the salience of task dimensions increased in Experiment 2, children's external representation strategies also increased. Four-year-old children showed a utilization deficiency in external representation strategy use in the prompt conditions, but not in the training condition. Thus, young children require additional situational support before they demonstrate cognitive competencies.