How to Improve a Childs Working Memory?

A lot of parents and teachers know that problem: The child is inattentive to task instructions or does not show the needed patience in order to solve a complex problem. Over time, this might frustrate parents as well as teachers who sometimes try to find explanations for these behaviours and maybe even assume that the child is “lazy” or just wants to get attention by not following instructions. However, the reason for such kind of limitations is often not intentional but rather due to a low working memory capacity – which children are often not able to compensate for without any specific training. Knowing that some potential working memory trainings for these children already exist, the question emerges whether and why exactly it would make sense to offer these to the general public in the future. Moreover, are there possible alternatives to help these children to keep up with their classmates having a normal working memory capacity?

In order to understand how the capacity of working memory might be improved it is necessary first to define what is meant by working memory. According to the definition by Baddeley and Hitch (1976) working memory is a limited capacity system that actively holds information in mind in which these can be manipulated. It consists of four subsystems: a phonological loop, a visuospatial sketchpad, an episodic buffer and a central executive. The phonological loop has two components: the phonological store in which sounds are stored; and the articulatory control process which automatically refreshes these sounds in a 2-second cycle (Revlin, 2012). Because of this 2-second limitation the following rule applies: the more information to process, the more will be lost from working memory.

The visuospatial sket...

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...ing memory capacity and consequently also with possible attentional problems and learning disabilities.

However, before such trainings might help children with low working memory capacity, it is necessary that especially teachers attentively try to identify them. For this, teachers need to be educated in the characteristics of these children and simultaneously need to know where affected children and their parents can go for more information. As the final step, parents, teachers and children preferably weight together the pro and cons of each approach and finally decide whether to try several strategy trainings or specific training programs, as the CMWT. However, considering that it is not a standard yet to inform teachers and parents for the occurrence and consequences of low working memory capacity, it still seems a long way this scenario becoming more realistic.