Toddlers of 14 and 18 months learned to produce target actions for six activities, were allowed to forget their training, and were reminded of the activities 8 or 10 weeks later, depending on their age. Reminders were administered in a memory-reactivation paradigm in which toddlers were shown the target actions of three of the six activities but were not allowed to imitate the modelled actions. Toddlers were tested for their recall of all six activities 24 hours after the reactivation treatment. Toddlers who were passively exposed to three activities during the reactivation session recalled more activities than controls who either were not reminded or did not originally engage in the activities. This study reveals that 14- and 18-month-olds encode components of an event associatively and that they are able to remember seemingly forgotten components through passive re-exposure to other components of the event.

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Four experiments examined (1) whether reenactment improves 18-month-olds' event memory, (2) how effects of reenactment are affected by the time at which the reenactment occurs, (3) whether timing of reenactment affects recall over very long periods of time, and (4) how partial reenactment affects recall. Children were trained to perform 8 novel activities in a laboratory playroom, returned to the playroom 15 min to 8 weeks later to reenact the activities, and were tested for recall of the original activities 6 to 8 weeks after reenactment. Results indicate that reenactment improves toddlers' event memory (Experiment 1); reenactment is more effective after a time delay (Experiment 2); effects of timing of reenactment are even more pronounced after a 6 month delay (Experiment 3); and reenacting half of the activities is just as effective as reenacting all of the activities (Experiment 4). These findings suggest that reenacting events or parts of events can remind very young children of past experiences and inoculate against forgetting over very long periods of time.

Four experiments examined (1) whether reenactment improves 18-month-olds' event memory, (2) how effects of reenactment are affected by the time at which the reenactment occurs, (3) whether timing of reenactment affects recall over very long periods of time, and (4) how partial reenactment affects recall. Children were trained to perform 8 novel activities in a laboratory playroom, returned to the playroom 15 min to 8 weeks later to reenact the activities, and were tested for recall of the original activities 6 to 8 weeks after reenactment. Results indicate that reenactment improves toddlers' event memory (Experiment 1); reenactment is more effective after a time delay (Experiment 2); effects of timing of reenactment are even more pronounced after a 6 month delay (Experiment 3); and reenacting half of the activities is just as effective as reenacting all of the activities (Experiment 4). These findings suggest that reenacting events or parts of events can remind very young children of past experiences and inoculate against forgetting over very long periods of time.