This paper examines infantile amnesia — the inability to recall events from the earliest years of life — and surveys the major theoretical explanations proposed by clinicians and researchers. Drawing on Freud's foundational claims, as well as empirical studies by Bauer, Meltzoff, Rovee-Collier, Tessler, and Howe and Courage, the paper explores four principal causes: neurological immaturity of the developing brain, limited early memory ability, the absence of narrative language skills, and an underdeveloped sense of self. The paper also addresses the controversial connection between childhood sexual abuse, dissociative disorder, and repressed memories, including the risk of false memory formation. Together, these perspectives illustrate that infantile amnesia is a multifaceted phenomenon with no single agreed-upon cause.
The paper demonstrates a comparative survey technique: each section introduces a distinct explanatory framework for the same phenomenon and briefly presents supporting evidence before moving to the next. This structure allows the writer to show breadth of knowledge across competing theories without having to adjudicate definitively between them — a useful approach when the scholarly consensus is genuinely unsettled.
The paper opens with a definition and Freud's foundational view, then proceeds through four distinct causal explanations in separate sections: neurological immaturity, memory capacity, narrative language ability, and self-concept. A fifth section addresses trauma-related amnesia and the false memory controversy. Each section is roughly equal in length, and the paper concludes implicitly with the abuse section rather than a separate formal conclusion. Citations follow APA style.
Infantile amnesia is defined as the failure of an individual to remember events from their early years of life. According to Freud, infantile amnesia usually entails a loss of memory of events that occurred before the sixth or eighth year (Freud, 1905/1953). Freud asserted that many early childhood memories were too startling to recall and were therefore filtered out, becoming what he called screen memories.
There are several explanations for the occurrence of infantile amnesia, including neurological immaturity, lack of memory ability, lack of a sense of self, and amnesia caused by sexual abuse. There is no clear consensus on the causes of infantile amnesia, but most clinicians agree that any of these factors may play a role. The sections below explore each of these factors in detail.
The theory of neurological immaturity suggests that the brain of a young child simply is not developed enough to process certain memories. This is a popular view for explaining infantile amnesia among clinicians. Studies have illustrated that between 8 and 24 months of age there is a period of synaptogenesis that occurs in the frontal cortex. In addition, after the age of two this process slows, allowing a greater ability to recall certain events.
Freud also suggests that throughout development, the processes by which we recall memories change (Bauer, 1996). He asserts that early childhood memories are often repressed, but he also suggests that memories formed by young children are qualitatively different from those formed at older ages (Bauer, 1996). An article published in American Psychologist found that "early in development, children were thought to retain traces, fragments, or images of events, but not to retain coherent representations of past experiences (Freud, 1905/1953). Freud suggested that childhood amnesia exists because adults failed to reconstruct or 'translate' these fragments into a coherent narrative" (Bauer, 1996).
Despite the neurological immaturity of infants, there is a belief that infants possess a more sophisticated memory process than was once thought. An experiment conducted by Meltzoff illustrated the concept of the deferred imitation paradigm. This paradigm asserts that children between the ages of 14 and 16 months old can remember single events over time. However, they will remember repetitive or habitual events even more readily, since these require practice. Such habitual events aid a child in the development of motor skills.
Another experiment, conducted by Rovee-Collier and a group of colleagues, explored the theory of the mobile conjugate reinforcement paradigm. In this study, the researchers tied a ribbon connected to a mobile to the ankle of an infant. The purpose of the experiment was to determine whether the infant would make the connection between the movement of its leg and the subsequent movement of the mobile, and whether the infant would remember this connection over time. The study found that infants were able to recall this connection over long periods, but only when reactivation cues were used to assist the recollection process. The study concluded that people have the ability to recall early childhood memories across a lifetime, but only if those memories are consistently reactivated (Bauer, 1996).
There is no clear consensus on the causes of infantile amnesia, but most clinicians agree that any of the factors discussed above — neurological immaturity, limited memory capacity, lack of narrative language, underdeveloped self-concept, and childhood trauma — may play a role. Infantile amnesia is best understood as a multifaceted phenomenon shaped by interacting biological, cognitive, and environmental influences.
You’re 52% through this paper. Sign up to read the remaining 3 sections.
Sign Up Now — Instant Access Already a member? Log inAlways verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.