Empirical Evidence Supporting Neural Contributions to Episodic Memory Development in Early Childhood: Implications for Childhood Amnesia

Memories for events that happen early in life are fragile—they are forgotten more quickly than expected based on typical adult rates of forgetting. Although numerous factors contribute to this phenomenon, data show that one major source of change is the protracted development of neural structures related to memory. Recent empirical studies in early childhood reveal that the development of specific subdivisions of the hippocampus (i.e., the...