Children show a bias toward information about shape when labeling or determining category membership for novel objects. The body of work with human children suggests that the shape bias is not restricted to linguistic contexts but is highly contingent on task demands. Testing nonhumans could provide additional information about the salience of…

Remembering the temporal information associated with personal past events is critical for autobiographical memory, yet we know relatively little about the development of this capacity. In the present research, we investigated temporal memory for naturally occurring personal events in 4-, 6-, and 8-year-old children. Parents recorded unique events…

Personal narratives are integral to autobiographical memory and to identity, with coherent personal narratives being linked to positive developmental outcomes across the lifespan. In this article, we review the theoretical and empirical literature that sets the stage for a new lifespan model of personal narrative coherence. This new model…

Mother-child dyads who experienced a devastating tornado talked about the storm and about two affectively more positive or neutral events at each of two time points: 4 months and 10 months after the storm. The conversations were analyzed to determine whether mothers and/or children's contributions differed as a function of event type and whether…

Mother-child conversations about a devastating tornado and about 2 nontraumatic events were examined to determine whether there were (a) differences in use of internal states language when talking about traumatic and nontraumatic events and (b) similarities in mothers' and children's use of internal states language. At Session 1, which took place…