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Maltreated Children's Memory of Stressful Removals from Their Biological Parents
Author(s) -
Baugerud Gunn Astrid,
Melinder Annika
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.1817
Subject(s) - psychology , developmental psychology , stress (linguistics) , recall , clinical psychology , cognitive psychology , linguistics , philosophy
Summary The effects of stress on memory were examined through a study of 33 3 to 12‐year‐old maltreated children removed from their biological parents by the Child Protective Services because of an emergency (acute) or normal (planned) care order. Children's stress levels were rated by a researcher present during the removal and children's memory of the removal investigated at a later time. The type of removal significantly predicted children's level of stress. ‘Acute removal’ children remembered more from high‐stress phases of the removal than the ‘planned removal’ children. All children had more accurate memories of the low‐stress phases. Details remembered were rated as central or peripheral; more central information was recalled than peripheral information. The ‘acute removal’ children recalled more peripheral information from the high‐stress phases of the removal than the low‐stress phases, a difference, which was not present for the ‘planned removal’ children. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.