Sigelman And Rider Childhood

Memory plays a big role in our life. We use memory every moment of the day from waking up to going to sleep. It might not seem like we are using it but it is actively on, such as when we are doing our daily chores or even sitting down to watch TV. The formal definition of memory by Sigelman and Rider is “our ability to store and later retrieve information about past events, develops and change over the life span”. While doing our daily chores, we use memory to recall the skills that are required to do these daily chores so in short memory is used to retrieve information from our brain that is store there. When we are sitting down to watch a TV show, we also use our memory to recall information from our brain about what had happened last episodes

Childhood is the time of immense learning and their memories are improve considerably as they grow older. The child’s short term memory capacity increases due to the fact that their information processing system has become bigger. Children with background information about one subject can lead to faster learning. “Older children know more than younger children about the world in general. This knowledge, or expertise, makes material to be learned more familiar, and familiar material is easier to learn and remember than unfamiliar material” (Pg. 239 Sigelman and Rider). Nature and nurture also plays a role during this time. If the child had a good environment (nature) where their parents or older siblings taught them well then it is easier for that child to learn faster and more. Also, if the child’s parents happen to be very smart, some of those “smart” genes (nurture) can be transferred to the child making him be able to learn faster or remember more. Older children have better strategies for learning than infants and they make less memory errors. These older children are also starting to use rehearsal and retrieval strategies. However, episodic memory is not