How to Help a Child with Weak Working Memory - Page 2

Likewise, you and your child's teacher can help your child develop knowledge of his or her own working memory, says Alloway. You can congratulate a child on any success right away. Then ask probing questions to help a child identify what worked well in a certain situation: "Did you think of a song or an image? Did you repeat it to yourself? Or, did you use a rhyme to help you with your multiplication tables?" If something works, suggest that your child try it again.

"This really encourages students to become aware of the strategies they're using," says Alloway. "Otherwise, they don't know what they've done, so they can't apply it again."
 

Use working memory as a floodlight to plan action

Parents should teach children to use available working memory to be more efficient, instead of focusing on multitasking, Alloway advises. With our busy lifestyles, many of us put a premium on multitasking. But it's not all it's cracked up to be, she says. "The great, great majority of us can't do it well."

"Instead, use working memory like a spotlight to focus on one thing at a time and shift between activities," says Alloway. "Do one activity and stop and shift to the next and maybe come back to the first, and so on. Do this instead of trying to do many things at once."

Alloway says that mindfulness training has been shown to help adults create a space in working memory to allow them to focus on a single thought, rather than being overwhelmed by a number of different things at once. See if you can find ways to help your child learn how to reduce distractions and compartmentalize in a similar way.

Train working memory

For a long time, psychologists thought that working memory was fixed, says Alloway. But evidence is beginning to show that you can train your working memory. One example is a home-based method of strengthening skills, called CogMed.  It can improve your ability to remember numbers in forward and backward order, for example, a signature skill of working memory. But does this transfer to learning and better grades? "If all you do is biceps curls, you would expect that your arms would be stronger, but not that you could run faster," suggests Alloway.

Swanson agrees. "You can certainly make changes in working memory, but it doesn't necessarily translate to getting a whole lot better in math and reading comprehension," he says.

Even so, some working memory training programs are beginning to show promise. The bottom line is buyer beware, says Swanson. He is researching a program that is showing promise, one that uses working memory tasks to improve math. "But," he says, "there is no magic bullet." If you try a program, watch how your child progresses with tasks in the classroom to see if it is making a difference.

Other Steps that May Help Working Memory

In many cases, more research is needed to confirm the benefits of specific strategies or lifestyle changes, such as adequate rest, good nutrition, and exercise, but many of these things may help.

Make technology an aid

In an age of programmable cell phones and electronic calendars, you may wonder whether technology  has become more of a crutch than compensation. But it can actually help students more efficiently manage the massive amounts of information they're expected to handle these days, suggests Alloway.

Now that information is so accessible, in fact, working memory is more important than ever. "That's because now we need to know what to do with all that knowledge," she says. "It's less important to memorize facts than to actually know how to apply them efficiently. As long as students know the principles behind scholarly instruction, agrees Cruger, there is nothing wrong with using efficient tools that help them remember better.

Reconsider video games

By the same token, you might want to take a second look at the value of video games your child is playing. Of course, playing several hours a day isn't healthy. But games with lots of navigation through different scenes have been shown to improve visual-spatial working memory scores, says Alloway. And, espionage video games that involve strategy or planning can also improve working memory," she says. That's because you have to execute an action without guidance and remember the consequences of the action, she says.