AUDITORY MEMORY SPAN FOR NUMBERS IN 
SCHOOL CHILDREN. 
JOHN I. JEGI. 
Late Professor of Physiology and Psychology, Milwaukee Normal School. 
\ 
The problem for this study was to determine the native mem¬ 
ory power in children between the ages of five and fifteen years, 
or as we find them in the grades from the first to the eighth in¬ 
clusive. Does memory power increase at a uniform rate from 
age to age as shown by the number of different things a child 
can retain and reproduce? Does it increase more rapidly at 
some ages than at others ? Do the many things a child has to 
remember increase his native memory power ? What may we 
regard as the actual memory span in children throughout the 
grades ? Is there a “memory period’ 7 as such during which this 
power suddenly and rapidly blossoms out and shows itself in a 
remarkable increase of native power? This investigation was 
undertaken to throw some light on these and kindred questions 
relating to this very important power of the human mind. The 
study is limited, however, to a single one of the six modes or 
forms of impression—the auditory, and to a single one of the 
scores of objects that may be remembered—numbers. 
Several studies have been made which throw some light on 
some of these questions, but memory span as such in school chil¬ 
dren has not been studied directly so far as I know. Mr. P. W. 
Smedley, Director of the Department of Child Study and Peda¬ 
gogical Investigation, of the Chicago Public Schools, gives a 
table of memory span in the third report (1900-1901), but the 
method he' used could not be expected to yield very accurate 
results, and besides he attempted only to determine some simple 
standard for comparing memory power in abnormal children 
whom he was studying and not to ascertain the actual span for 
