childhood amnesia

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Concept	Definition	Why It Happens	Example
Childhood Amnesia	Inability to recall events from before ~3 years	Brain structures for long‑term memory still maturing	A child remembers a hospital visit vaguely or not at all
Hippocampal Development	Hippocampus encodes episodic memories	Still developing in infancy → unstable storage	Early events don’t consolidate properly
Language Development	Memory becomes stronger once language forms	Pre‑verbal memories lack narrative structure	A toddler feels fear but cannot form a story
Sense of Self (Autobiographical Self)	Ability to place oneself in time	Emerges around age 3–4	Before this, memories lack personal context
Emotional Salience	Strong emotions enhance memory	But early emotional memories still fade due to immaturity	Painful events at age 2 may leave no lasting trace
Memory Reconstruction	Adults reconstruct early memories from stories/photos	Not true recall	“I remember it” but actually recalling family retellings
Selective Retention	Brain prunes irrelevant early memories	Supports efficient