Am J Psychiatry 1996; 153:618-625
Copyright © 1996 by American Psychiatric Association
Children's memories in the wake of Challenger
LC Terr, DA Bloch, BA Michel, H Shi, JA Reinhardt and S Metayer
Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, Stanford, USA.
OBJECTIVE: The Challenger spacecraft explosion of Jan. 28, 1986, offered an
opportunity to study the memories of normal latency and adolescent children
of different emotional involvements following one sudden and distant
disaster. How would children of various levels of concern express their
memories? And if studied over time, how would these narratives change?
Would there be developmental differences? And would there be false details
of memory? METHOD: The authors set out to compare the memories of 153
children from Concord, N.H. (who watched the explosion on television), and
Porterville, Calif. (who heard about it). The structured-interview
responses of involved and less involved children; latency-age versus
adolescent children; and those seen initially (5-7 weeks after the
explosion) versus those same children seen later (at 14 months) were
statistically compared. RESULTS: The vast majority of children's memories
of Challenger were clear, consistent, and detailed, with highlighting of
personal placement, who else was there, and personal occurrences linked to
the event. Those children who were less emotionally involved demonstrated
significantly less clarity, consistency, and correct ordering of sequences
and were less likely to remember personal placement, other people who were
there, and related personal incidents. About 30% of all children in this
study misunderstood something about Challenger and incorporated these
misunderstandings into their memories as false details. Latency- age
children continued to harbor false details for 14 months, as opposed to the
adolescents. CONCLUSIONS: Childhood memories of the Challenger space
shuttle explosion appeared predictable, were related to patterns of memory
that have been observed following single, unrepeated traumas, and reflected
age and stage differences.
