Causes of Childhood Amnesia

Have you ever tried to recollect events that ensued when you were a child? Did you remember? I am sure you wonder why sometimes; you are beleaguered with the odious task of recalling what transpired while you were a child. This is shared amongst you and a host of other persons.

Childhood Amnesia is the inability of an adult to remember episodic occurrences that emerged during the early years of his/her juvenile period. How is it so that a person remembers the knowledge acquired during these years, but does not remember he you acquired them? There has to be some sort of answer to the status quo, right?

Well, researchers, with studies conducted on children and young rodents, have discovered what boosts this occurrence. And they have probably answered the question to the puzzle of why adults can recall events that succeed them during and after the age of seven.

Therefore, the major aim of this article is to dispel the perplexing queries on childhood amnesia by probing the reasons that lead to the manifestation of the status quo.

Causes of Childhood Amnesia

The problem with recalling these memories start with an ardent grasp of the circumstances wrapped around the nature of children. They are still little, early in the routes of development. So, the process of memory formulation may look far-fetched to the brain of a brooding infant. Psychologists and researchers have revealed that in most scenarios, memories are formed and often elude children when they are below the age of seven, not because they have a devastating impediment, but in most cases, it is ascribed to the natural hindrance that is found in many children.

Let us now examine these hindrances.

• Lack of Neurological Maturation

This means that childhood amnesia is attributed to the incapability of the structures in the brain to form, store, and remember memories. Lack of stored memories permits children to forget events or how the attained basic skills and knowledge.

When children are four, brain systems have still not reached a state of maturity. Immaturity of the brain at this time impedes memory storage.

However, when they are seven, the brain is closer to that of an adult, thus memory becomes more accessible. As they reach adulthood, they can vividly recall events that took place from seven years and above.

• Lack of verbal knowledge

Adults may be unable to recall events that took place before the age of two because of the disability in speech and inarticulate nature that dawdled then. Since, at the age of two, children are still trying to learn a language they have no means of recalling episodic events. Subsequently, the brain proceeds to forget events since there is no way of storing them.

• Neurogenesis

Memories are stored in the hippocampus. The hippocampus collects memories from different sensory regions in the brain, simultaneously, and compiles them into a single episode.

Yet, the action of neurogenesis was first discovered in animals. By testing the memory of animals —rodents and rats, researchers were able to discern neurogenesis as a primary cause of childhood amnesia.

Neurogenesis is the production of new neurons in the brain. In most cases, they taught rodents new tricks and subsided the memory by giving the same rodents drugs that enhanced the production of new neurons in the brain, making them forget the tricks they learned. When this happens in children, it affects the memories stored in the hippocampus — that is, the addition of new connections in the brains.

But as the brain of children still dwindles in the routes of development, it cannot regulate the number of neurons created. That is why, more often, it occurs in the brains of children than adults.

With a cross-examination of child psychology, we can fathom the reasons for the common phenomenon of childhood amnesia. It is good to understand that these things are normal and not a factor of frightful health concerns. The battle now lies within recollecting the memory that waned off innately. Although it seems impossible to recant every event that transpired in your childhood years due to the nature of our systems, the significant ones you appear not to remember can be recorded by a guardian or parent.