From age 4, children spontaneously devise multiple previously unseen reminder-setting strategies across transfer trials, with this tendency increasing with age¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r? · q3
Currency · newest study 2023 · checked against its sources 2026-10-19 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? Many children aged 4 years and older spontaneously devised more than one previously unseen reminder-setting strategy across six transfer trials. → Armitage 2023

Evidence¶

Armitage 2023¶

Armitage, KL; Suddendorf, T; Bulley, A; Bastos, APM; Taylor, AH; Redshaw, J. (2023). Creativity and Flexibility in Young Children's Use of External Cognitive Strategies. Developmental Psychology, 59 (6), pp. 995-1005. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001562

q3 · i? · causal · r?

In the same preregistered study's transfer phase, children who had used the demonstrated strategy at least once were introduced to a conceptually similar but structurally distinct task; the article reports many 4-year-olds and older "spontaneously devised more than one previously unseen reminder-setting strategy."

"By contrast, many children aged 4 years and older spontaneously devised more than one previously unseen reminder-setting strategy across the six transfer trials, with this tendency increasing with age."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Age and Developmental Stage — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes

Related Claims¶

• Young children can self-initiate external metacognitive strategies and transfer them across contexts, with flexibility increasing over the preschool and early school years — a broader claim this one bears on
• From age 6, children deploy effective external strategies on most trials, with strategy number, combination, and order varying widely within and across age groups — related
• Most 3-year-olds deployed a demonstrated external marking strategy, but none modified it to solve a conceptually similar transfer task — related