Many aspects of brain development dependon experience. Because the major macro-morphological events of brain development occur overthe first 2–3 years of postnatal life, this time period can be considered both a period ofopportunity as well as a period of vulnerability. In this paper we describe how experience withstress early in life can have a negative impact on certain aspects of brain development, andspecifically, those neural circuits that underlie memory. We also describe the effects of traumaticevents on the development of the neural basis of memory. In support of our argument, we reviewthe literature on brain, stress, and memory in the context of development. Based on this review,we suggest that the developing brain is particularly vulnerable to the harmful physiologicaleffects of stress, which in turn has the potential to lead to impairments in memory.Unfortunately, there are few empirical data that directly address this hypothesis. In this contextwe offer a number of suggestions for future research.