The role of maternal elaborative structure and control in children’s memory and suggestibility for a past event

Reduced Autobiographical Memory Specificity Among Maltreated Preschoolers: The Indirect Effect of Neglect Through Maternal Reminiscing

“…Following established frequency based coding schemes (e.g. Fivush & Sales, 2006;Principe et al, 2017;Van Bergen, Salmon, Dadds, & Allen, 2009), maternal wh-questions (open-ended elaborations), yes or no questions (closed-ended elaborations), elaborative statements, and confirmations were identified. Provisions of new information were coded as elaborative statements.…”

“…The affective quality of maternal reminiscing captures maternal sensitive guidance in a more holistic manner and is defined by the degree to which mothers accept their children's emotional expressions, display genuine interest in reminiscing, and foster the coconstruction of coherent and emotionally-adequate narratives (Koren-Karie, Oppenheim, Haimovich, & Etzion-Carasso, 2003). Mothers who talk with their children in a manner that supports autonomy, by following their children's lead and by responding sensitively to their children's expressions (irrespective of the quantity of maternal elaborations), have children who are more engaged in reminiscing (Cleveland & Morris, 2014) and provide more detailed independent reports of their experiences compared with children of mothers who are less sensitive and more controlling (Principe, Trumbull, Garder, Van Horn, & Dean, 2017). When maternal reminiscing is sensitive and coherent (high in affective quality), children's understanding of events and their ability to incorporate their experiences into their autobiography are enhanced (Bird & Reese, 2006;Koren-Karie et al, 2003).…”

“…A self-determination perspective of maternal reminiscing suggests that maternal provision of elaborations (elaborative quantity) and the affective tone in which the elaborations are delivered (affective quality) are independent constructs associated with children's motivation and competence for talking about the past (Cleveland & Morris, 2014;Cleveland & Reese, 2005). In support of this perspective, correlational and experimental studies have identified that the quantity of maternal elaborations and the affective nature of maternal reminiscing are distinct dimensions on which mothers can simultaneously vary (Cleveland & Morris, 2014;Cleveland & Reese, 2005;McDonnell et al, 2016;Principe et al, 2017). For example, a mother who provides a high volume of elaborations in a dismissing manner that serves a self-driven agenda would be high in elaborative quantity, but low in the affective quality of maternal reminiscing.…”

“…Existing work suggests that there may be additive effects of the quantity of maternal elaborations and the affective quality of maternal reminiscing in promoting children's independent autobiographical memory retrieval. For example, children of mothers who reminisce in a high elaborative and sensitive manner have been observed to provide the most complete and accurate event reports to researchers compared with children of mothers who are low on one or both reminiscing dimensions (Cleveland & Reese, 2005;Principe et al, 2017). McDonnell and colleagues (2016) extended this work to AMS among typically developing preschoolers and showed that preschoolers' AMS increased as maternal structural elaborations (i.e., non-emotional information and questions regarding contextual details) and emotion elaborations (i.e., references and questions regarding emotions) increased.…”

Children's expectations and episodic reports over 12 weeks: Influences on memory for a specially designed pediatric examination

“…tance of examining internal (e.g.,Cordón, Silberkleit, & Goodman, 2016) and external (e. g.,Principe, Trumbull, Gardner, Van Horn, & Dean, 2017) sources of suggestibility. The intrusions of Typical but Omitted features reflect the influence of generic knowledge that had its origins in the children's actual experiences (e.g., earlier doctor's visits and exposure relevant media) over a relatively long period of time.…”