The behavior of mothers interacting with their preschoolers in a memory-relevant situation was examined. Ten 3-year-olds and their mothers were videotaped playing a game requiring memory for the location of hidden pictures. Frequency of nine categories of parental behavior was scored: naming, verbal orienting, physical orienting, physical description, functional description, questioning, instruction, verbal praise, and physical praise. The relationship between parental behaviors and the child's performance and study behaviors on a subsequent memory task was also investigated, and parents completed a questionnaire on ways they used to help their child remember. Analysis of the videotaped interactions indicated that instructions, questions, and physical orienting were the most frequent parental behaviors; however, significant correlations among physical and verbal orienting and physical and functional description suggested that behaviors designed to focus the child's attention were characteristic of some mothers. This finding was supported by questionnaire data, in which mothers reported that they encouraged looking, naming, pointing, and manipulation as mechanisms for increasing recall. No relationship was found between maternal behaviors in the game and recall or study behaviors on the memory task. (Author/MP)