Children Provide Reasonable, but Imprecise, Temporal Information About a Recently Experienced Event

Abstract

Despite considerable interest in children's ability to provide temporal information, there remain many unanswered questions about what children can provide and how to elicit this information. In Study 1, children (N = 147, aged 5 to 10 years) participated in an activity session. Either shortly after or 1 day later, children completed an interview focused on temporal concepts: duration, temporal distance, day of the week. Children generally provided imprecise temporal information, though there was evidence of a developmental improvement in accuracy. There was little evidence of a negative impact of delay to recall on children's accuracy. In Study 2, children (N = 139, aged 6 to 12 years) participated in an activity session and 3 days later completed an interview about duration and temporal distance. Overall, accuracy was low, but most estimates were reasonable. The present studies have implications for both what is considered an accurate response and for what degree of temporal precision is reasonable to request from children.