Negative events don’t always protect from memory distortion: the case of children with nonverbal learning disability.

Although typically-developing children may be less likely to form false memories for emotional events, it is not clear whether this is the case for children with emotional difficulties or other forms of disability. The present study addressed this question by assessing memory in children with non-verbal learning disability (NLD) who suffer from emotional difficulties, children with dyslexia and typically developing children (matched for age, gender, cognitive level and socio-economic status) (N = 72). Participants viewed 12 photographs for each of 8 common episodes (e.g., family dinner); each episode included a photograph depicting an effect of an action whose cause was not presented. Effects were either emotional or neutral. Children’s recognition memory was tested with a mixture of old and new photographs (i.e., including script- consistent and -inconsistent distractors and unseen causes of seen effects). Results showed that children with NLD produced a higher proportion of causal errors associated with negative events compared to the other groups (who had a similar performance) and that these errors were associated with subjective recollection. Overall, these results suggest that there are populations of children who might be particularly vulnerable to the formation of false memories for emotionally negative events.