What is working memory
One of the key cognitive abilities crucial for academic attainment is working memory. This is the ability to briefly hold, maintain, or store information in mind while processing the same or other information. Auditory and visual information is retained in working memory for only a few seconds. For example in a typical adult only four to seven pieces of information can be maintained in working memory processing.
Next to fluid reasoning, working memory is one of the strongest predictors of academic learning, providing the mental workplace fluid reasoning needs to function. Such is the case when items are compared and contrasted.
Implications for learning
Nearly all academic learning depends on working memory.
As the academic load increases during the schooling years, working memory is more in demand. Phonological awareness, reading comprehension, mathematical problem solving and numerical operations and attention and concentration all require the effective use of working memory. The greater working memory capacity a child has the faster they learn.
Research suggests at least 10 percent of students in a typical classroom have working memory deficits that impair their academic learning and performance. Therefore automaticity is an essential learning requirement to support working memory and reduce cognitive load.
Automaticity is attained when a skill or procedure is mastered and no longer requires conscious, effortful cognitive processing. The load on working memory is greatest when a child is first learning a skill or concept. Hence the importance of revision and repetition until the concept, procedure or skill is encoded to long term memory. An example of this is learning the times tables. All these years later I still remember them. My working memory is free from too much effortful control.
Another example of automaticity is driving. Remember how much you had to concentrate keeping skill and road rules in mind when first learning to drive? Learning is challenging and requires use of working memory until automaticity has been obtained.
Other forms of learning, such as mathematics, require the use of working memory to hold operations in mind while retrieving previously learned concepts from long term memory. But where children can automate learned concepts, they should. If a Year 5 student is still struggling with phonological decoding, they will have fewer resources to cope with reading comprehension.
Measuring working memory
If you or your child's teacher are concerned about their academic attainment, rate of learning, skill at following directions and listening to instructions, among other indicators suggestive of limited capacity in working memory, an educational psychologist can administer a range of tests to help better determine working memory efficiency.
Suitable tests include the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence Fourth Edition (WPPSI IV), Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children Fifth Edition (WISC V) and the Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning Second Edition (WRAML2). The WISC V measures executive working memory, phonological working memory and visual spatial memory. The WPPSI only measure visual-spatial memory. The WRAML2 is a more comprehensive assessment of memory measuring executive working memory, phonological, verbal, and visual-spatial working memory.
Working memory interventions
Following an assessment on working memory, recommendations for remediation may include the following.
Remedial working memory interventions
Remedial working memory interventions are designed to correct brain-based deficits by directly addressing the weakness. In the past 20 years there has been an abundance of research supporting the belief that working memory brain functions can be strenghtened.
The primary method of remediation or strengthening working memory is computer-based training. In a ground breaking study by Tageuchi et al (2010) measureable growth in the brain's white matter (connective tissue) was discovered which correlated with the extent of training and the amount of improved performance.
One such computer based program is Cogmed, a comprehensive evidence-based online program developed in Sweden (cogmed.com.au).
Compensatory interventions for working memory
Compensatory interventions are classroom based strategies which make effective use of existing working memory capacities. Compensatory strategies include:
Teaching mnemonics i.e Roy G. Biv is a name used to remember the colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet
Teaching what working memory is and how to use post it notes to jot down thoughts and ideas (less holding in working memory)
Teaching how to extend storage time by repeating information over and over i.e. holding a phone number in mind
Presenting new material in small units in an organised manner
Re-teaching concepts as necessary and enabling repetition and review of concepts during initial stages of learning
Teaching children how to visualise what they are reading
Teaching children how to chunk information into pairs, clusters or groups. This happens with reading when children go from learning letters to blends, syllables and then words. But other practice of this can include chunking numbers such as 5, 1, 6, 7 into 51 (fifty one) and 67 (sixty seven).
Working memory is a brain based construct. For children to learn and make academic gains they require working memory capacity where information, whether auditory or visual, is held in the mind briefly for use. Working memory is like a post it note, it does not hold a lot of information. Therefore the quicker this information can be encoded to short term and long term memory the more effective learning will become.