Children who were 4 to 8 years of age were asked to perform a sort-recall task where only half of the items had to be studied and remembered. Following a baseline trial, children were assigned to 1 of 3 groups and were prompted to use either a sorting or a clustering strategy (experimental groups) or were not prompted at all (control group).…

Kindergarten, first-, and third-grade children were given a multitrial sort-recall task with different items on each trial. Children were asked to predict how many items they would recall prior to each trial. We classified children into high- and low-overestimation groups based on their prediction accuracy on the first two trials and assessed…

Factors that influence the incidence of utilization deficiencies and other recall/strategy-use patterns on a strategic memory task were evaluated in two hundred and fourteen 7- and 9-year-old children. Both utilization deficiencies and the incidence of children showing increases in both recall and strategy use over phases were more likely to be…

Fourier analyses of children's behaviors were conducted over a sequence of five consecutive study/recall trials to identify temporal patterns. Findings pointed to a global strategy in which children learn the items' categories before learning them individually. There was little qualitative difference in temporal organization for second graders and…

Investigates the extent to which the high levels of recall and organization observed when children are asked to recall classmates' names (class recall) can be attributed to organizational versus item-specific effects. (Author/NH)

Free recall performance of children in grades three, five, seven, and nine and of adults was assessed according to a list of categorically related words. Results indicated that seventh and ninth graders were more apt to use associative relations to begin category clusters than were younger children or adults. (Author/BE)

Results suggest that when memory strategies are used by young children, the mental effort expended on implementing the mnemonic reduces the amount of mental capacity available for other activities, resulting in only modest gains in memory performance. (PCB)

Classified children's use of cognitive strategies on a multitrial sort-recall task. Compared to fourth graders, more second and third graders were classified utilizationally deficient; fourth graders were more likely to be classified as quasi-utilizationally deficient. Levels of recall and clustering were higher for younger utilizationally…

A negative transfer paradigm was used to assess kindergarten, third-, and sixth-grade children's use of category relations in lists presented for recall. Results showed that negative transfer effects increased with age, with kindergarten children showing no evidence of interference relative to a control group. (Author/MP)

An alternating sort-recall procedure was used in three experiments to train third-, fifth-, and seventh-grade students in the use of organizational techniques as memory aids. (Author/JMB)

Second-, third-, and fourth-graders received five sort-recall trials for word lists. Results indicated that multiple strategy use increased with age; fourth graders who used more strategies had higher recall than those who used fewer; children at all ages showed substantial inter-trial variability in using multiple strategies; and the use of few…

Examined developmental differences in the acquisition and extension of an organizational strategy in 2 experiments involving 242 children in grades 3, 4, 5, and 7. Levels of performance were greater for sets of typical items than for sets of atypical items at all grade levels. (RJC)

Reports two studies of kindergartners', second-graders' and fifth-graders' recall of objects from self-generated scenes. Finds that increasing organization of background improves recall and that instructing subjects to create a story improves both recall and rated organization of generated scenes. Suggests that greater association between items,…

In a series of three experiments, first-, second-, third-, and fourth-grade children were asked to recall the names of their classmates. Assessment of their organization according to various classroom groupings (e.g., seating arrangement and reading group) was then performed. (Author/MP)