The memory of a toddler

It is said, by some, that young children don't form long term memories. The impression is that they don't retain much of their daily life, for long. I have come to doubt that.

On the 12th November, twenty-one month old Tiarnan saw a Christmas tree in a shopping centre.

He ran over to it excitedly and reached up to pick up at the baubles. That wasn't what got my attention. What did, was his words as he did so: "Mismas! Mismas!" he said. He had remembered Christmas, from a year before when he had been ten to eleven months old.

Now, he had not heard the word Christmas, either, since last year - so his rendition of it: "Mismas" is a memory of word long unheard and long unused. This is another indicator that young children do, in fact, form long-term memories, and are able to recall them much later.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and eleven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and four months, and Tiarnan, twenty-one months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)