By Dhara Thakar Meghani
How does your child effortlessly recall the day you picked her up late from school last year, but can’t remember instructions you gave her three minutes ago?
Memory comes in different forms and functions–an event from a year ago can be remembered vividly due to its emotional significance, allowing it to become a part of your child’s long-term memory. She’ll probably be able to recall that day for a long time (sorry, mom and dad), even though her emotional reaction to it may dampen over the years.
Working memory, or the “brain’s post-it note,” as psychologist Tracy Alloway calls it¹, is what we all use to remember and manage multiple pieces of information. A good working memory is responsible for screening out distractions² and helping your child focus on the task at hand, such as applying the “order of operations” on math tests and answering questions about the story she just heard in English class.
Working memory, even more than IQ, has also been found to be a stronger predictor of verbal and math achievement in school.³ This research can help to explain some of the frustration you and your child may both feel when he has trouble keeping track of “simple” lists of information, or isn’t making the grade you would expect from such an intelligent child.
As we become increasingly reliant on computers to be our working memories through devices that store and manage information for us, there are fewer opportunities for children (and all of us, really) to exercise parts of their brain that are equipped for these very functions. So is nurturing a ‘good’ working memory in your child absolutely necessary when the trend seems to favor greater use of gadgets to do our mind’s work?
While a computer might spit out a sum faster than your child can pick up a pencil, the task of working through the calculations manually grows a child’s mental flexibility, creativity, and patience. These are the positive and essential side effects of exercising one’s working memory, and qualities that will encourage innovation and resourcefulness well after your child is through with grade school.
The most dramatic developmental period of working memory, which also happens to be the best opportunity to intervene, is greatest during childhood; one study found that our working memory increases more in the first ten years than it ever will for the rest of our lives¹. This isn’t particularly surprising, as many things are better learned and practiced starting at a young age.
What can parents do to help their child improve his working memory and possibly be a more successful student?
Several studies suggest that cognitive or brain training can gradually enhance a child’s working memory4,5, and that starting when children are younger is more likely to yield better outcomes6. Researchers are also attempting to make the most of today’s tech age by designing brain training games online (try www.lumosity.com or www.brainconnection.com/teasers), that target working memory among other areas of cognition. While a child’s processing speed and ability to remember a greater number of items might improve as he gains more practice, studies have yet to learn whether performance on these computerized games will generalize to “real world” tasks.
Here are some other ways that you might stimulate your child’s working memory that don’t involve staring at a screen:
• Play card games that encourage your child to make mental notes of where the matching cards are in between turns (such as Memory or Concentration).
• Play board games that have multiple rules (such as different outcomes depending on the roll of the dice, etc.), and ask your child to ‘help’ you remember the rules to keep her involved when it’s not her turn.
• Bring your child along when running errands and give him a list of his own to accomplish; for example, while grocery shopping, ask him to get certain items on the list without going into the same aisle twice. Add variations to this exercise as he gets better, such as timing him, having to pick up a number of items throughout the store without the list in hand, etc. These tasks will exercise your child’s verbal and visuo-spatial working memory, and processing speed (the time it takes to finish the task) will probably improve, too.
• Slow down and simplify directions based on your child’s age and developmental capacity. Studies show that younger children simply don’t have the “space” in their brains to hold too many pieces of information at once, but can learn as they practice and mature.
If you have concerns that your child has working memory deficits, do consult a doctor and/or neuropsychologist; early diagnosis is the first step to getting your child back on track.
Dhara Thakar Meghani has found incredible value in the ‘tangible’ post-it note to supplement her working memory. What are some methods you use to help you remember everything you have to do day-to-day?
Notes:
¹Alloway, T.P. (2011). Improving working memory: Supporting students’ learning. London, UK. SAGE Publications.
²Klingberg, T. & Betteridge, N. (2013). The learning brain: Memory and brain development in children. New York, NY. Oxford University Press.
³Alloway, T., & Alloway, R. G. (2010). Investigating the predictive roles of working memory and IQ in academic attainment. Journal Of Experimental Child Psychology, 106(1), 20-29.
4Diamond, A. & Lee, K. (2011). Interventions show to aid executive function development in children 4-12 years old. Science, 333, 959-964.
5Klingberg, T. (2010). Training and plasticity of working memory. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14, 317-324.
6Wass, S. V., Scerif, G. G., & Johnson, M. H. (2012). Training attentional control and working memory–is younger, better? Developmental Review, 32(4), 360-387.
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