The aim of the current study was to conduct a factor analysis of the Children's Memory Questionnaire-Revised (CMQ-R) and evaluate it as a reliable and effective measurement of memory functioning in children. The CMQ-R is a 36-item questionnaire designed to assess parents' perceptions of their children's memory. Three hundred and seventy-one children aged 5 to 12 years old participated in this study. Three hundred and forty-two children were recruited from schools and 29 were recruited from Kaleidoscope outpatient medical and allied health clinics. Parents of all 371 children completed the CMQ-R, and the parents of 6-, 8-, 10-, and 12-year-olds in the school group completed a 2nd CMQ-R approximately 1 month later. In the school group, children at these ages also participated in a formal assessment of memory. In the clinical group, all 29 children were tested. The results indicated that correlations between the CMQ-R and formal memory testing were low; however, these results improved slightly when age groups were separated with the highest correlation occurring for the 12-year-olds. The school and clinical groups were compared on measures of the CMQ-R, and results indicated that there was a significant difference in the CMQ-R total between the school and clinical groups. A factor analysis of the CMQ-R revealed three factors with moderate to strong loadings, and these reflected, although were not limited to, episodic memory, visual memory, and working memory/attention. The possibility is discussed that the CMQ-R was assessing different aspects of memory than formal testing and that these are likely to be everyday memory abilities.
Keywords: children's memory; everyday memory; questionnaire.