Working memory in children: How to improve attention problems and learning difficulties in kids

© 2010 Gwen Dewar, Ph.D., all rights reserved

And there's good news: It can be sharpened with training.

But kids with WM problems are often misunderstood.

Does your child have attention problems?

Does she have more trouble following directions than do other kids her age?

Then you need to read this.

WM capacity: How big is your child’s "mental workspace"?

Such tasks engage working memory, the memory we use to keep information immediately “in mind” so we can complete a task.

It’s like a mental workspace or notepad—the “place” where we manipulate information, perform mental calculations, or form new thoughts.

Just as different computers have different amounts of RAM, WM capacity varies from person to person. You can see this if you try giving the same verbal instructions to different kids.

“Please give me the red pencil, then pick up the blue eraser and put it in the green box.”

This leads to trouble in the classroom.

Kids with low WM capacity may look like they aren’t paying attention.

They often commit “place-keeping” errors, repeating or skipping words, letters, numbers, or whole steps of an assigned task.

They may frequently abandon tasks altogether, not because they are lazy or uncooperative, but because they have lost track of what they are doing.

The problem shows up in many different domains. Math immediately comes to mind, because we all have experience trying to do calculations “in our heads.” But low WM capacity affects language, too.

For instance, a child with low WM capacity may find it hard to write sentences. By the time he finishes spelling the first few words, he’s forgotten what he intended to say next. Similarly, he has trouble with reading comprehension. While he’s working hard to decode written words, he loses track of the overall “gist” of the text.

Is this related to ADHD?

Dyslexia?

What about age? Isn’t it normal for young children to have relatively poor working memory skills?

Are poor working memory skills a sign of lower intelligence?

But we can’t equate WM with overall intelligence. For instance, working memory isn’t the same thing as IQ.

Some kids perform well on IQ tests and yet have relatively mediocre WM skills (Alloway and Alloway 2010).

How is this possible? Tests like the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) have distinct subtests. Some specifically target WM, others don’t.

And it’s likely that there are different kinds of working memory, too. Some kids may have especially poor auditory WM, so that they really struggle with spoken verbal instructions. Others may have very poor visual-spatial WM, making it difficult for them to keep up in math.

So we shouldn’t assume that poor WM means a child isn’t smart.

And here’s some exciting news. New research suggests that many kids could dramatically improve their WM skills with training.

Improving WM with computer-based training

The researchers identified a group of school kids--aged 8 to 11--who performed poorly on the Automated Working Memory Assessment (AWMA), a test for screening kids with WM deficits.

Next, the kids were enrolled in a computer-based training program developed by Cogmed (Holmes et al 2009). For about 35 minutes a day, kids played computer games that that challenged their working memory skills. Game tasks included:

• Hearing a series of letters read aloud (“G, W, Q, T, F…”) and repeating them back

• Watching a battery of lamps light up, one at a time, and then recalling the correct sequence by clicking the correct locations with a computer mouse.

• Hearing and watching a sequence of numbers while they are spoken aloud and flashed on a keypad. After each sequence, the student is asked to reproduce the sequence in reverse order by hitting the correct digits on the keypad.

• Watching a group of “asteroids” move across the screen and light up in sequence. The student must try to recall which asteroids lit up and in what order.

• Watching lamps alight one at a time on a grid, then seeing the grid rotate 90 degrees. Can the student recall the correct sequence--even though the lamps are now in different positions?

For kids in a control group, the difficulty level of these tasks remained easy throughout the study. But for kids in the treatment group, the program was adaptive--i.e., they were given progressively more difficult tasks as their performance improved.

How did the training pan out?

After about 6 weeks of training, researchers re-tested the students’ working memory skills, and the results were pretty dramatic. While both groups improved, the kids in the adaptive program did much better. Their average gains were 3 to 4 times higher than those of kids in the control group.

In fact, the adaptive training was so successful that most of the kids were no longer classified as having poor WM capacity for their age.

Their mathematical abilities had improved, too.

And the effects were long-lasting. Six months after training ended, the kids in the adaptive training program still showed significant and substantial gains.

Did these kids get smarter? Their IQ scores didn’t increase. But their ability to learn did. And when it comes to achieving in school, working memory may be even more important than IQ.

WM in the classroom: More important than IQ?

The results were sobering. Early working memory skills were a better predictor of later academic achievement then were early IQ scores (Alloway and Alloway 2010). And, unlike IQ, working memory did not correlate with the parents’ socioeconomic status or educational level.

As the authors note, this suggests that kids from all backgrounds might benefit from WM training programs. But parents and teachers need to get the message.

Who needs help?

How do we identify kids with low WM capacity? And what can we do to help?

Signs of low WM capacity

• Has normal social relationships with peers

• Is reserved during group activities in the classroom and sometimes fails to answer direct questions

• Finds it difficult to follow instructions

• Loses track during complicated tasks and may eventually abandon these tasks

• Makes place-keeping errors (skipping or repeating steps)

• Shows incomplete recall

• Appears to be easily distracted, inattentive, or “zoned out”

• Has trouble with activities that require both storage (remembering) and processing (manipulating information)

Gathercole and Alloway suggest strategies for teaching kids with WM difficulties.

For example, they advise teachers to break down tasks and instructions into smaller components. It’s also important to prompt kids with regular reminders of what they need to do next to finish a task.

Kids should be encouraged to ask questions when they have lost their way. And kids may benefit from being asked to repeat key information back. They may also benefit from special training in the use of memory aids—like note-taking .

But the new research suggests we can do much more for kids with working memory problems. How can you get your child diagnosed and treated?

Assessment and training

But perhaps the best place to start is Tracy Alloway’s excellent website about working memory, which summarizes her research and offers links to many services. There you will also find information about Jungle Memory, a computer program for kids aged 6-16.

Improving your child's working memory skills: More information

References

Alloway TP. 2007. Automated working memory assessment. Oxford: Harcourt.

Gathercole SE and Alloway TP. 2007. Understanding working memory. London: Harcourt.

Holmes J, Gathercole SE, and Dunning DL. 2009. Adaptive training leads to sustained enhancement of poor working memory in children. Dev Sci. 12(4):F9-15.

Jaeggi, S. M., Buschkuehl, M., Jonides, J., & Perrig, W. J. (2008). Improving Fluid Intelligence With Training on Working Memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105(19), 6829-6833

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