DO YOUNG-CHILDREN REHEARSE - AN INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES ANALYSIS

The issue of whether young children rehearse in auditory memory tasks was investigated across a series of three studies comparing individual differences in articulation rates and memory spans. Applying the prin ciples of the working-memory model, children with faster rates of spea king should have superior memory spans if they engage in rehearsal. Tw o of the experiments, with 4-year-old children, failed to establish an y significant association between articulation rate and memory span, a lthough both the memory span and articulation rate procedures were fou nd to be highly reliable in this age group. A third experiment confirm ed that, as expected, articulation rates and memory spans were signifi cantly associated with one another in adult subjects. The results indi cate that, contrary to recent theories of children's short-term-memory development, 4-year-old children do not engage in subvocal rehearsal during auditory memory span tasks.