The use of a verbal rehearsal strategy (repeating the items to be remembered to oneself in serial order) has been identified as a key factor in explaining working memory (WM) development. However, the debate remains open with regard to the age at which children are able to use it, and the actual benefits of using such a strategy. Numerous…

The capacity to remember sequences is critical to many behaviors, such as navigation and communication. Adult humans readily recall the serial order of auditory items, and this ability is commonly understood to support, in part, the speech processing for language comprehension. Theories of short-term serial recall posit either use of absolute…