The effects of stress on young children's memory for a natural disaster

The effects of stress on children's long-term memory for a major hurricane were studied. Stress was objectively defined as low, moderate, or high acco rding to the severity of damage to the child's home. One hundred 3- and 4-y ear-old children received a structured interview 2-6 months following the h urricane. Older children recalled and elaborated more than younger children . Prompted recall was greater than spontaneous recall. There was a quadrati c function, consistent with an inverted U-shaped curve, relating storm seve rity with overall as well as spontaneous recall. These findings can be appl ied to the effects of stress on the amount recalled by children giving retr ospective accounts of temporally extended, naturalistic events.