ABSTRACT
Since the publication of Katherine Nelson’s (1986) groundbreaking studies on the
structure and development of children’s event knowledge, research has provided a
wealth of information about how generalized event representations support chil-
dren’s cognitive development. Schematically organized event knowledge provides
a form of mental representation that children draw on when engaged in cognitive
tasks such as recalling events, understanding and constructing stories, communicat-
ing with parents and peers, and drawing inferences (Nelson, 1986). According to
Nelson, general event knowledge provides a “cognitive context,” an organized
knowledge base that children can rely on, both implicitly and explicitly, to guide
their recall of events and their reasoning about events. Research has shown that pre-
school children are able to recall stories, understand temporal sequences, and to
draw inferences from text when the material they are thinking about refers to famil-
iar events, but fail to display the same level of ability when asked to remember or
reason about unfamiliar situations (see Hudson, 1993, for a review).
