Recent advances in early memory development: research on typical and atypical children

In order to learn about memory development one must start from the beginning. An infant goes through remarkable changes during the first years of life; they begin to crawl, talk, and actively engage with the world around them. Much too often in the history of psychology, the abilities present during the first years of life have been neglected, overlooked, or not given much weight in theory building. For example, because adults fail to recall events from the first years of their life, assumptions were made about the nature and form of memory during early development (for review,see Hayne & Jack, 2011). We do not claim that everything needed for mature memory abilities is there from the beginning, but most of the observations to date make us feel confident in stating that the memory of infants is much better than previously believed.