How do Children Remember? Research by Dr Thanujeni Pathman, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology at York University and a bit about me.

“This presentation examines what we know about children’s memory and the factors that support memory development. Learn about changes that are occurring in the brain as kids get older and the sophisticated memory abilities in young children. Viewers will also learn about the implications of child development research for forensic settings (eyewitness testimony) and education.” I attended the one hour lecture. Initially I found it dry. I studied memory and aging at York University in my undergrad so much was a refresher for my grey cells. However, it soon became interesting as new good stuff came up. Research is so important, though it was clinical work that interested me. Dr Pathman spoke of her research, in the lab and at the Toronto zoo during a camp week with children. For parents interested in having their children participate in any of the research find the parents page and if there is a study age related for a child, you can sign up. There will be a video of this session probably in a week. Look up York University Scholars alumni for an u tube video. I can keep an eye for it if you are interested and post it for you. What I found new for me and very interesting is that event memories emerges in infancy. This has been my view for ages but now there is evidence to support it. My question to her was: Are there memories before birth? For ages, people have refuted my belief. Here is my happy dance. There have been studies when a child is in the womb, when stories are read and music played. There is evidence that after birth the child is able to show familiarities to those materials and also to recognize voices heard when in the womb. Another area of interest to me is forensics regarding the idea of children not being able to be believed. Remembering my own military police training (ages ago) we were informed that testimony of children was unreliable due to exaggeration. However, as a Psychotherapist the memory of horrific sexual abuses people have experienced even as babies is remembered. They can remember clothing and who abused them, too often a parent and their friends. I see people who have come from throughout the world and too often their abusers are dead. I often think there is a pandemic of child sexual abuse. In Canada we have to report the sexual abuse of children, but we notify them of our reporting and confidentiality regulations. When people are notified what I have to report, how many people will be open? Anyhow, back to the session. There will be more research conducted and so there will be evidence for therapists to provide in court regarding a child’s testimony. Anyhow, that is all for now. Someone asked the question if more memory is remembered in real life rather than screen time. During screen time, though it is possible to learn, it is better to learn when more engaging. I am also going to add that note taking by hand is best to retain memory than typing notes on your computer. I still take notes by hand even though I can’t read my writing at times. I also prefer attending conference live, but by attending on line, I have the opportunity to attend more. Anyhow, what I thought was going to be boring, turned out to excite me. Saturday I shall be attending a sister’s of crime event again by my American sisters. It will be regarding how IT will effect us as writers. I am thinking of adding an IT component in my next serial killing book so I need to learn as much as possible about it. Unfortunately I had to miss a few on the topic but I need to make it a priority from now on. That’s it for now. I will be attending a Mississauga meet your local author, with me there selling and signing my books. I missed Word on The Street and didn’t do any signing what so ever so I want to be more motivated for that as well. So much to do. Anyhow, have a nice week. I don’t know if I shall have the time to write more this week, but I want to cut and paste one of my books for you. My publisher is now reading Ominous, so wish me luck. I have more to talk about that too. What do you think?