Considerable progress has been made in understanding early memory development. However, much of this research pre-dates contemporary theories of memory systems in the mature brain. This review provides a refresher on these conceptual frameworks and proposes a common theoretical foundation for reconciling adult and infant studies. This foundation enables a critical analysis of infant studies that have directly tested memory and suggests that they may not capture the full nature and extent of episodic memory abilities in infancy. The analysis is extended to infant studies that are ostensibly focused on cognitive domains other than memory and finds that many such tasks require episodic-like memory. Thus, there may be substantially more evidence for episodic-like memory in infants than previously recognized.
