Childhood Amnesia

The Phenomenon Explained

Abstract

This paper seeks to present the phenomenon that is ‘Childhood Amnesia’. It defines this

phenomenon and proposed theories to explain why this happens. It describes both a physical

explanation as well as many psychological explanations given by popular psychologists. Among

these psychologists are Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget and Erik Erikson.

Introduction - What is Childhood Amnesia?

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The Phenomenon Explained

Childhood amnesia is the frequent failure for adults to retain information from the earliest years

of their infancy, particularly from before the ages of 3 to 5. This is one of the more intriguing

aspects of memory as most humans suffer from it, though this stage in life is when a human will

experience thing for the first time, the most.

Infantile amnesia does not refer to complete absence of memories, but the relative lack of

memories through infancy- a scarcity that cannot be only accounted for by a forgetting curve. It

is also influenced by both personal experiences and cultural aspects.

Research has confirmed that children are proficient learners and are quick to obtain and preserve

information. Children do remember events; however, these recollections accessible as children

are lost to childhood amnesia in later life.

The Underdeveloped Hippocampus

The hippocampus is a key component of the brain of humans and other mammals. It belongs to

the limbic system and plays significant responsibilities in long term memory and

spatial navigation. Similar to the cerebral cortex, with which it is strongly related, it is a paired

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The Phenomenon Explained

structure, with mirror-image halves in the left and right sides of the brain. In humans and other

primates, the hippocampus is located inside the medial temporal lobe, beneath the cortical

surface.

With Alzheimer's disease, the hippocampus is one of the initial regions of the brain to experience

damage; memory problems and disorientation appear among the first symptoms. Damage to the

hippocampus can also result from oxygen starvation, encephalitis, or medial temporal lobe

epilepsy. People with extensive hippocampal damage may experience amnesia—the inability to

form or retain new memories.

Also, until the human is the age of three or four, the hippocampus is not fully developed. Before

this age, the infant’s mind is not neurologically mature enough to create long-

lasting autobiographical memories. These sections of the brain are known to be related with the

creation of permanent memories of the sort notably missing from adult remembrance of early

childhood.

Diagram 1 below illustrates the area of the human brain known as the Hippocampus.

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The Phenomenon Explained

Sigmund Freud’s Trauma Explanation

In the set of books now available as ‘The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works

of Sigmund Freud’, Freud hypothesized that infantile amnesia is the result of the psychological

attempt of the mind to suppress recollections of traumatic occurrences that take place at the same

time as the psychosexual developmental stages that every child experiences. This then, would

cause the suppression of the majority of the first years of life hence, the existence of childhood

amnesia.
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The Phenomenon Explained

The first stage of psychosexual development is the ‘Oral stage’, which lasts from birth to about

the 18th month. During this stage, the focus of gratification is on the mouth and pleasure is the

result of nursing, but also of exploration of the surroundings, as infants tend to put new objects in

their mouths.Thus the baby does not have a sense of self and all actions are based on the pleasure

principle.

After this, is the ‘Anal stage’. During this stage, Freud believed that the primary focus of the

libido was on controlling bladder and bowel movements. The major conflict at this stage is toilet

training- the child has to learn to control his bodily needs. Developing this control leads to a

sense of accomplishment and independence.

According to Freud, success at this stage is dependent upon the way in which parents approach

toilet training. Parents who utilize praise and rewards for using the toilet at the appropriate time

encourage positive outcomes and help children feel capable and productive. Freud believed that

positive experiences during this stage served as the basis for people to become competent,

productive, and creative adults. However, not all parents provide the support and encouragement

that children need during this stage. Some parents instead penalize, mock, or embarrass the

offspring for accidents. According to Freud, unsuitable parental responses can result in negative

outcomes. If parents take an approach that is too lenient, Freud suggested that an anal-expulsive

personality could develop in which the individual has a messy, wasteful, or destructive

personality. If parents are too strict or begin toilet training too early, Freud believed that an anal-

retentive personality develops in which the individual is stringent, orderly, rigid, and obsessive.

This means that there are very intricate decisions to be made by the guardian of the child and if

mistakes are made at this time, as it would because no one is perfect, there would be some form

of ‘scar’ from this experience showing in their behaviour. This is the trauma that Freud speaks of

that causes the lack of ability to remember before this stage. The mind of the young child of all

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humans, blocks out all emotional trauma inflicted memories. Freud’s explanation is not

completely credible as it isn’t confirmed, but there is some evidence supporting it. Most of the

psychologists that study this, do not agree with this theory.

Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Developmental Stages

Erik Erikson had worked with Freud in Austria. After the death of Freud, Erikson began to

disagree with many of his mentor’s key points. He agreed with Freud’s theory that every human

goes through stages of life that affect their development. However, he felt that Freud emphasized

too much on the sexual aspect of people’s lives and did focus enough on the social experiences.

And thus, he hypothesized that there are eight psychosocial developmental stages through one’s

lifespan. The second stage is when the child has the battle between Autonomy and Shame. This

takes place between one and a half years and three years of age. It is focused on developing a

greater sense of personal control. He agreed with Freud that toilet training was very important.

However, Erikson that learning to control one’s body functions leads to a feeling of control and a

sense of independence.

Where Erikson’s reasoning for the vitality of this stage differs from Freud’s, the result is the

same. If the child is not able to complete this stage with total confidence and self- independence,

which no one does, this is quite traumatic on the young mind and causes the memory before this

point to fade away.

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Jean Piaget’s Preoperational Period

Jean Piaget, a famous psychologist, proposed that there are four stages of cognitive development

that every human goes through. This is the ‘Language Explanation’ of childhood amnesia. The

second stage named ‘The Preoperational Period’ offers an explanation for childhood amnesia. By

observing sequences of play, Piaget was able to demonstrate that towards the end of the second

year of life, a qualitatively new kind of psychological functioning occurs.

The major characteristic of the preoperational stage is rationally insufficient mental procedures.

During this stage, the child learns to use and to represent objects by images, words, and

drawings. Also, the child learns to use language to represent objects by images and words.

The child is able to form stable concepts as well as mental reasoning and magical beliefs. The

child however is still not able to perform operations; tasks that the child can do mentally rather

than physically. Two sub-stages can be formed from preoperational thought however only one

will be referred to for the purpose of this paper.

This is ‘The Symbolic Function Sub-stage’ which occurs between the ages of 2 and 4. The child

is able to formulate designs of objects that are not present. Because the child is now able to

associate objects symbolically, he will now only remember that and not what he knew of the

object before. This happens too, with experiences. The child will learn from the experience, but

will not remember the experience itself. For example, the child will learn to call a ball “a ball”,

but will not remember how he learned this.

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Douglas Hofstadter’s Chunking Theory

‘Chunking’ according to Hofstadter, is “taking ‘small’ concepts and putting them together into

bigger and bigger ones, thus recursively building up a giant repertoire of concepts in the mind.”

Babies simply cannot piece together their thoughts as thoroughly as adults because they do not

yet possess the ability to ‘chunk’ as large amounts of information as adults do. Hofstadter

compares babies to beginners at a complex game such as chess in his essay titled ‘Analogy as the

Core of Cognition’. They require the experience that allows for perception of great amounts of

information. However, as they grow older the ability to perceive larger events grows.

Because of the child’s inability to chunk so largely, what they do ‘chunk’ becomes insignificant

compared to later discoveries made by the child. They learn from the ‘chunking’ but do not

remember the chunks.

Other Observations

Context explanation

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The disparity in perspective that infants and adults experience of the world may be a cause of

childhood amnesia. For kids, their physical perception of objects and their understanding of

people and events are very different from the world of the adult. Furthermore, an infant’s basic

understanding of its surrounding is not innate at birth. This then leads to a difference in memory

retrieval cues used by the adult and those used by the child, who will encode memories without

many of these principles that are ingrained in the mind of the adult trying to recollect. This

different context could lead to the inability of the adult to remember his earliest years at all.

Self- Awareness Theory

An additional proposed account for childhood amnesia is that we don't recognize our individual

early experiences when we get older. It has been conceived that children develop self-

consciousness by about two years of age. This may be demonstrated by a child's ability to

distinguish himself in a picture. According to this theory, memories are intrinsically linked with

one's sense of self, such that memories encoded before self-awareness develops are not

understandable to the individual even though some information is stored in the brain.

Conclusion

Each theorist makes very valid points on the matter. However, I would most agree with
Hofstadter. I believe that at that point in time, we are unconsciously learning behaviours through
experience. Since the child does not have the ability to ‘chunk’ so largely, what they do ‘chunk’
turn out to be irrelevant and therefore not retained, weighed against findings made by the infant

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The Phenomenon Explained

later in their life. They learn from the ‘chunking’ but do not bear in mind the chunks. This also
coincides with Piaget’s theory of the pre – operational stage of the child’s life.

Bibliography

Balter L., Catherine S., Tamis-LeMonda (2003), Child Psychology. Washington, D.C.: Cultural,
Social, and Maturational Influences on Childhood Amnesia

Hofstaster, D.,(1976), Analogy as the Core of Cognition,

http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/hofstadter/analogy.html

Erik Homburger Erikson (1977), Childhood and Society, Edition 2 - 397 pages.

Sigmund Freud (1974), A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis – 412 pages

Patricia J. Bauer, Remembering the Times of our Lives.: Cognitive Development as an

Explanation for Childhood Amnesia – 437 pages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood_amnesia

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