Table 2.
Dependent Measures of Children’s Language (Panel a), Domain-general Cognition Functions (Panel b), Non-autobiographical Story Recall (Panel c), Deliberate and Strategic Remembering and Metamemory (Panel d), and Memory for Source (Panel e)
| Dependent Measure(s) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Panel a: Language (obtained at Wave 1 only) | ||
| WJ Language | The four subscales of the Test of Verbal Comprehension: Picture Vocabulary, Synonyms, Antonyms, and Verbal Analogy were combined into a total score. | |
| Panel b: Domain-general cognitive functions | ||
| WJ Visual Matching (VM) | VM1 at 4 years; VM2 at 5 years and older. Total score = number of rows (VM1–items) correctly completed in 3 minutes (VM1–2 mn) | |
| WJ Numbers Reversed | Children given a series of numbers (2–9) and instructed to repeat the numbers in reverse order. Total score (max = 30) | |
| WJ Pair Cancellation | Children asked to circle a pair of objects (ball and dog) when they appear in a certain order on the response sheet. The number of correct pairs completed in 3 minutes (max = 69) | |
| Panel c: Non-autobiographical story recall | ||
| Story Recall | Encoding (Session 1) | Experimenter read a story to the child using an illustrated book: “I’m going to tell you a story and show you some pictures. Next time you come, I’m going to see if you can tell the story back to me without looking at the pictures.” Different stories were used at each wave. No measures obtained at Session 1 |
| Retrieval (Session 2) | Child was shown the cover of the story book: “Last week, we read the story about_____. Tell me what happened in the story.” If child did not respond in free recall, prompted by reading 1st page of story. Number of parses, verbatim units, and gist units | |
| Panel d: Deliberate and strategic remembering and metamemory | ||
| Sort Recall | Experimenter presented 18 picture cards (6 from each of 3 categories; 15 at age 4: 5 from each of 3 categories), labeling and arranging them on the table. Instruction: “Study the cards and do whatever you want with them so you can remember them later.” After a 2 mn study period, the cards were removed; child was engaged in a 30 mn buffer activity, and then asked to “Recall as many cards in any order.” Proportion of items recalled. Strategic behavior: total number of organizational strategies (sorting, category naming, clustering) | |
| Metamemory | Children asked 8 metamemory questions regarding the sort-recall task (e.g., Did you do anything to help you remember?). Total metamemory score (max= 8) | |
| Panel e: Memory for source | ||
| Source Memory | Encoding (Session 1) | Children were presented with 12 novel facts by either a person or a puppet (on a computer monitor). Experimenter instructed children to watch the videos and learn the new facts because they would be asked about them later. No measures obtained at Session 1 |
| Retrieval (Session 2) | Children were asked to recall (a) what they learned (items), and (b) the source (person/puppet) that presented the item. Proportion of correctly recalled items and for correct items, proportion of correctly recalled sources | |
Notes. WJ = Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities (Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001); ARC = Adjusted Ratio of Clustering (Roenker, Thompson, & Brown, 1971)