Maltreated Children’s Ability to Make Temporal Judgments Using a Recurring Landmark Event

Abstract

This study examined whether maltreated children are capable of judging the location and order of significant events with respect to a recurring landmark event. One hundred sixty-seven 6- to 10-year-old maltreated children were asked whether the current day, their last court visit, and their last change in placement were “near” their birthday and “before or after” their birthday. Children showed some understanding that the target event was “near” and “before” their birthday when their birthday was less than 3 months hence, but were relatively insensitive to preceding birthdays. Therefore, children exhibited a prospective bias, preferentially answering with reference to a forthcoming birthday rather than a past birthday. The results demonstrate that the recurring nature of some landmark events makes questions about them referentially ambiguous and children’s answers subject to misinterpretation.