A Parent-Report Diary Study of Young Children’s Prospective Memory Successes and Failures

Mahy, Caitlin E. V.; Kamber, Ege; Conversano, Maria C.; Müeller, Ulrich; Zuber, Sascha · 2023 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2023.2277930

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Summary

This study addresses the gap in understanding young children’s prospective memory (PM)—the ability to remember to perform future intentions—in naturalistic, everyday contexts. While laboratory research has extensively documented the development of PM and influencing factors, little is known about how these abilities manifest in daily life for children aged 2 to 6. The authors aimed to determine if 2-year-olds exhibit PM successes, how PM performance varies with age, and which task characteristics (e.g., importance, motivation, typicality) predict success or failure in real-world settings. The researchers employed an online parent-report diary methodology involving 154 parents of American children aged 2 to 6 years. In an initial session, parents completed questionnaires assessing their child’s future-oriented cognition and everyday memory. Over four consecutive days, parents reported instances of their child’s PM successes and failures, providing up to ten examples per day. For each instance, parents rated task importance (for both child and parent), child motivation, task typicality, task assignment source, and the level of parental assistance provided. Open-ended responses regarding task domains and assistance types were coded by independent raters. The results indicated that children as young as two years old demonstrated PM successes in daily life, with no significant age differences in the frequency of reported successes or failures across the 2- to 6-year age range. Parents reported more PM successes than failures overall. Analysis of task factors revealed that higher child motivation and greater task importance to the parent were associated with PM success. Conversely, higher task typicality and increased parental assistance were related to PM failure, suggesting that routine tasks and those requiring significant scaffolding were more prone to being forgotten or requiring intervention. The study also identified common domains for PM tasks, such as personal care, tidying, and household rules. These findings suggest that parent-report diary methodology is a feasible and efficient alternative to laboratory tasks for examining young children’s PM in ecological settings. The results imply that while PM emerges early, its expression in daily life is heavily influenced by motivational and contextual factors rather than age alone. The association between parental assistance and failure highlights the role of scaffolding in supporting young children’s developing memory systems. This work provides a foundation for understanding how naturalistic factors shape the development of prospective memory, offering insights that complement laboratory-based findings.

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• prospective memory interruptions