McGuire, R., Hiller, R. M., Ehlers, A., Fearon, P., Meiser-Stedman, R., Leuteritz, S., & Halligan, S. L.2021-08-102021-08-102021McGuire, R., Hiller, R. M., Ehlers, A., Fearon, P., Meiser-Stedman, R., Leuteritz, S., & Halligan, S. L. (2021). A longitudinal investigation of children’s trauma memory characteristics and their relationship with posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, 49(6), 807-816.https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10802-021-00773-5http://hdl.handle.net/11212/5197While trauma memory characteristics are considered a core predictor of adult PTSD, the literature on child PTSD is limited and inconsistent. We investigated whether children’s trauma memory characteristics predict their posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) at 1 month and 6 months post-trauma. We recruited 126 6–13 year olds who experienced a single-incident trauma that led to attendance at an emergency department. We assessed trauma memory disorganisation and sensory-emotional qualities through both narrative recall and self-report questionnaire, and PTSS at 1-month post-trauma and at 6-month follow-up. We found that, after controlling for age, children’s self-reported trauma memory characteristics were positively associated with their concurrent PTSS, and longitudinally predicted symptoms 6-months later. However, observable trauma memory characteristics coded from children’s narratives were not related to PTSS at any time. This suggests that children’s perceptions of their trauma memories are a more reliable predictor of the development and maintenance of PTSS than the nature of their trauma narrative, which has important implications for clinical practice.en-UStrauma memoryPTSDresearchArticle