Drawings as memory aids: optimising the drawing method to facilitate young children’s recall

Abstract

There has been supportive evidence of drawing facilitating young children’s event recall. The present study investigated whether additional event details are recalled if the interviewer uses interactive questions in response to information children have spontaneously drawn or verbally reported. Eighty 5- to 6-year-olds were shown a video clip of a novel event and were interviewed the following day. The children were randomly allocated to one of four recall conditions: tell-only, draw-and-tell, interactive draw-and-tell, and interactive tell-only. The children’s verbal reports were transcribed and scored on four different categories of recall: items (objects and people), actions, colours and sayings. The interactive draw-and-tell group recalled more correct information for items compared to the other three recall groups, without any accompanying increase in errors. We propose that drawing increases the opportunity for the interviewer to ask interactive questions, which in turn facilitates children’s accurate recall of item information.