Remembering and Telling: A Developmental Story

Nelson, Katherine

doi:10.1075/jnlh.1.2-3.02rem

Article published In: Journal of Narrative and Life History
Vol. 1:2/3 (1991) ► pp.109–127

Get fulltext from our e-platform

Download PDF

Remembering and Telling: A Developmental Story

Katherine Nelson | City University of New York Graduate Center

Published online: 4 August 2015

https://doi.org/10.1075/jnlh.1.2-3.02rem

Abstract The relation of narrative to the onset of autobiographical memory in early childhood is considered from the perspective of three sources of narrativity: (a) event knowledge, (b) parental talk about past and future events, and (c) knowl-edge of story schemata. Evidence from work on children's scripts and episodic memory indicates that both general and specific event knowledge is well estab-lished by 3 years of age. Evidence from the monologues of a 2 year old (Emily) indicated that parental talk about past and future events was available as a model for the child to use to formulate her own memories and anticipations in verbal form, and that she did indeed produce coherent accounts of past happenings and future activities based on, but going beyond, these models. By 3 years, however, Emily—and most children observed—could tell a good story about her own life's events, but did not recount a fictional story that had been read to her in the same coherent narrative mode. Both good memories and good stories seem to be based on representations of events influenced by parental models of narrative-type talk. (Psychology)

References (22)

Barsalou, L. W. (1988). The content and organization of autobiographical memories. In U. Neisser & E. Winograd (Eds.), Remembering reconsidered: Ecological and traditional approaches to the study of memory (pp. 193–243). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

(1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bruner, J., & Lucariello, J. (1989). Monologue as narrative recreation of the world. In K. Nelson (Ed.), Narratives from the crib (pp. 73–97). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Burke, K. (1945). Grammar of motives. New York: Prentice-Hall.

Engel, S. (1986). Learning to reminisce: A developmental study of how young children talk about the past. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, City University of New York.

Fivush, R., & Hudson, J. A.(Eds.). (1990). Knowing and remembering in Young children. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Freeman, D. (1964). Dandelion. New York: Viking Penguin.

Hudson, J. A. (1990). The emergence of autobiographic memory in mother-child conversation. In R. Fivush & J. A. Hudson (Eds.), Knowing and remembering in young children (pp. 166–196). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Hudson, J. A., & Nelson, K. (1986). Repeated encounters of a similar kind: Effects of familiarity on children's autobiographic memory. Cognitive Development, 11, 253–271.

Mandler, J. M. (1984). Stories, scripts, and scenes: Aspects of schema theory. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self and society. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Mink, L. O. (1981). Everyman his or her own annalist. In W. J. T. Mitchell (Ed.), On narrative (pp. 233–239). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Nelson, K. (1986). Event knowledge: Structure and function in development. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Nelson, K.(Ed.). (1989). Narratives from the crib. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Nelson, K. (1990). Remembering, forgetting and childhood amnesia. In R. Fivush & J. A. Hudson (Eds.), Knowing and remembering in young children (pp. 301–316). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Piaget, J. (1969). The child's conception of time (A. J. Pomerans, Trans.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. (Original work published 1946)

Ratner, H. H. (1984). Memory demands and the development of young children's memory. Child Development, 551, 2173–2191.

Rubin, D. C.(Ed.) (1986). Autobiographical memory. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Sachs, J. (1983). Talking about the there and then: The emergence of displaced reference in parent-child discourse. In K. E. Nelson (Ed.), Children's language (Vol. 41, pp. 1–28). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Schank, R. C., & Abelson, R. P. (1977). Scripts, plans, goals and understanding. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

White, H. (1981). The value of narrativity in the representation of reality. In W. J. T. Mitchell (Ed.), On narrative (pp. 1–24). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Cited by (34)

Cited by 34 other publications

Order by:

Petrova, Anna A., Irina V. Privalova & Ksenia O. Kosova

2023. Discursive designing of autobiographical memories in speech ontogeny: Longitudinal survey. Russian Journal of Linguistics 27:4 ► pp. 915 ff.

Quasthoff, Uta & Juliane Stude

2021. Children’s narrative interactions. Narrative Inquiry 31:1 ► pp. 147 ff.

Salazar Orvig, Anne, Geneviève de Weck, Rouba Hassan & Annie Rialland

2021. A dialogical approach to the acquisition and usage of referring expressions. In The Acquisition of Referring Expressions [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 28], ► pp. 1 ff.

Salazar-Orvig, Anne, Geneviève de Weck, Rouba Hassan & Annie Rialland

2021. Chapter 1. A dialogical approach to the acquisition and usage of referring expressions. In The Acquisition of Referring Expressions [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 28],

Rebrina, Larisa, Nikolay Shamne, S. Cindori, O. Larouk, E.Yu. Malushko, L.N. Rebrina & N.L. Shamne

2018. Explicating Ways to Recollect Autobiographical Material During German-Language Biographical Interview. SHS Web of Conferences 50 ► pp. 01142 ff.

Smirnova, S., E.V. Makushkin, A. Asnis, E. Vaske, E.G. Dozortseva, F.S. Safuanov, S.N. Shishkov, S.S. Shipshin, D.S. Oshevsky, D. Berdnikov, T.N. Sekerazh & A. Kalinina

2016. About illegality determination of the validity of evidence through forensic examination. Information letter. . Psychology and Law 6:3 ► pp. 61 ff.

Brown, Steven D & Paula Reavey

2015. Turning around on experience: The ‘expanded view’ of memory within psychology. Memory Studies 8:2 ► pp. 131 ff.

Dozortseva, E.G. & A.G. Krasavina

2015. Assessment of juveniles testimonies’ validity. Journal of Modern Foreign Psychology 4:3 ► pp. 47 ff.

Nelson, Katherine

2015. Making sense with private speech. Cognitive Development 36 ► pp. 171 ff.

Arnott, John L. & Norman Alm

2013. Towards the improvement of Augmentative and Alternative Communication through the modelling of conversation. Computer Speech & Language 27:6 ► pp. 1194 ff.

Santamaría, Andrés & Eva-María Montoya

2008. La memoria autobiográfica: el encuentro entre la memoria, el yo y el lenguaje. Estudios de Psicología 29:3 ► pp. 333 ff.

Todman, John, Norman Alm, Jeff Higginbotham & Portia File

2008. Whole Utterance Approaches in AAC. Augmentative and Alternative Communication 24:3 ► pp. 235 ff.

Pasupathi, Monisha & Emma Mansour

2006. Adult age differences in autobiographical reasoning in narratives.. Developmental Psychology 42:5 ► pp. 798 ff.

Pasupathi, Monisha, Trisha Weeks & Cora Rice

2006. Reflecting on Life. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 25:3 ► pp. 244 ff.

Aksu-Koç, Ayhan

2005. Role of the Home Context in Relations Between Narrative Abilities and Literacy Practices. In Perspectives on Language and Language Development, ► pp. 257 ff.

Atance, Cristina M. & Daniela K. O’Neill

2005. Preschoolers’ talk about future situations. First Language 25:1 ► pp. 5 ff.

Pasupathi, Monisha & Ben Rich

2005. Inattentive Listening Undermines Self‐Verification in Personal Storytelling. Journal of Personality 73:4 ► pp. 1051 ff.

Chan, Samuel W.K.

2004. Automatic discourse structure detection using shallow textual continuity. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 61:1 ► pp. 138 ff.

Chan, Samuel W.K.

2006. Beyond keyword and cue-phrase matching: A sentence-based abstraction technique for information extraction. Decision Support Systems 42:2 ► pp. 759 ff.

Mills, Antonia

2003. Are Children with Imaginary Playmates and Children Said to Remember Previous Lives Cross-Culturally Comparable Categories?. Transcultural Psychiatry 40:1 ► pp. 62 ff.

Pasupathi, M.

2003. Emotion regulation during social remembering: Differences between emotions elicited during an event and emotions elicited when talking about it. Memory 11:2 ► pp. 151 ff.

Todman, John & Norman Alm

2003. Modelling conversational pragmatics in communication aids. Journal of Pragmatics 35:4 ► pp. 523 ff.

Pasupathi, Monisha, Sarah Lucas & Amy Coombs

2002. Conversational Functions of Autobiographical Remembering: Long-Married Couples Talk About Conflicts and Pleasant Topics. Discourse Processes 34:2 ► pp. 163 ff.

Pasupathi, Monisha

2001. The social construction of the personal past and its implications for adult development.. Psychological Bulletin 127:5 ► pp. 651 ff.

Spira, Marcia & Barbara Berger

2001. The Penultimate. Psychoanalytic Social Work 8:1 ► pp. 27 ff.

Todman, John, David Rankin & Portia File

1999. The Use of Stored Text in Computer-Aided Conversation:. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 18:3 ► pp. 287 ff.

Aim, N. & J.L. Arnott

1998. Computer-assisted conversation for nonvocal people using prestored texts. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Part C (Applications and Reviews) 28:3 ► pp. 318 ff.

Low, Jason & Kevin Durkin

1998. Structure and causal connections in children's on-line television narratives: What develops?. Cognitive Development 13:2 ► pp. 201 ff.

Low, Jason & Kevin Durkin

2001. Individual differences and consistency in maternal talk style during joint story encoding and retrospection: Associations with children’s long-term recall. International Journal of Behavioral Development 25:1 ► pp. 27 ff.

Eisenmann, Barbara

1997. Gender differences in early mother‐child interactions: Talking about an imminent event. Discourse Processes 24:2-3 ► pp. 309 ff.

Mills, Antonia & Linda Champion

1996. Come‐backs/Reincarnation as Integration; Adoption‐out as Disassociation: Examples from First Nations Northwest British Columbia. Anthropology of Consciousness 7:3 ► pp. 30 ff.

Mishler, Elliot G.

1995. Models of Narrative Analysis: A Typology. Journal of Narrative and Life History 5:2 ► pp. 87 ff.

Ely, Richard & Allyssa McCabe

1993. Remembered voices. Journal of Child Language 20:3 ► pp. 671 ff.

McCabe, Allyssa

1991. Plans, Routines, and Memories: Inspired Telling—A Response to Katherine Nelson. Journal of Narrative and Life History 1:2-3 ► pp. 129 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.