There is a vast amount of literature that suggests there is a connection between intimate partner violence and maladaptive outcomes for children. Studies have shown that children witnessing violence undermines children's sense of safety. Intimate partner violence (IPV) proves distressing and deregulating for children who are victims of intimate partner violence. Not only is witnessing violence distressing for children, but it has also been shown to interfere with managing stressors and learning age-appropriate skills. Although many studies have been conducted to demonstrate the effects of IPV on children's development, there have been no studies showing how IPV can affect children's memory skills. Looking at children 5 years old or younger there are indications that IPV can negatively affect a child's memory development. Much of the development of working memory, long-term memory, and strategies for remembering information occurs in children's preschool years. Because of the limited literature on how family situations can affect a child's memory development, it is unclear how large a role IPV can have on a child. However, there is a small amount of information that seems to indicate that IPV causes children to be so concerned about their safety that it interferes with their attention spans. Children who later develop attention problems have problems with encoding information and working memory performance. The researchers, in an effort to gather more information on this topic, began a longitudinal study that would be used to attempt to find more information on the link between IPV and memory. The focus of the test was on IPV occurring around children... ...halfway through the paper ...experts came to the conclusion that the parents' abusive relationship was linked to the children's memory ability. The study helped determine that IPV has a negative impact on children's working memory, so it is important that programs are designed to help children overcome the negative effects IPV has on children's short-term memory , on working memory performance and on intentional memory. strategies. While the study helped support previous studies, it also has its flaws. The main problem of the study was that the research was mainly correlational and not all possibilities were taken into account, but only the information taken from the mother was taken into account. Works Cited Gustafsson, Hanna C., et al. "Intimate partner violence and children's memory." Journal of Family Psychology 27.6 (2013): 937-944. PsycARTICLES. Network. December 11. 2013.