The Population, Society and Inequality Series presents

"Accuracy, Content, and Quality in Children’s Autobiographical Narratives"
with Zoe Klemfuss, Post-Doctoral Student, Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, UCI

Tuesday, April 17, 2012
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Social Science Plaza B, Room 4250

The ways young children discuss past events are of both theoretical and applied importance. Studying children’s narrative abilities helps us understand how the process of structuring and communicating a remembered event impacts other aspects of development such as memory accuracy and learning social expectations. Further, understanding how children narrate, and the factors that impact the content and accuracy of their narratives, can be applied to both legal cases and clinical interventions involving child victims or witnesses. This talk will review literature pertaining to children’s autobiographical narratives and will specifically cover research examining 1) the relationships between children’s language, narrative skills, and memory accuracy, 2) the relationship between interviewer question format and children’s narrative responses, and 3) the effects of social context on children’s narrative content and accuracy. Together this research reveals the importance of children’s narrative abilities as well as the significant impact of external factors on children’s abilities.
 
This lecture is sponsored by the Gender, Work and Family Research Group.

For further information, please contact Jayne Lee Yang, jayne.lee@uci.edu.