I am a psychologist interested in how working memory impacts learning
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Michael Jackson’s death a few days ago has shocked the world. Like everyone else who grew up in the eighties, I listened to his music, and even saw an advance screening of the Thriller video when it first came out. He was not just a great singer, but a once great businessman, recognizing valuable investments before anyone else did. So how did someone that was once so successful die broke and overdosed on drugs? One possible reason is related to his working memory. The autopsy on the King of Pop showed that he had taken a dangerous cocktail of opiate based drugs, including OxyContin and Demerol. Opiate based drugs impair your working memory, affecting your ability to mentally store and manipulate information. Scientific studies show that those who take opiates struggle to remember even a simple list of words a short time after they have taken opiate-based drugs. It does not need to have been suicide as many people are suggesting. By taking OxyContin and other opiates, Michael Jackson might, quite literally have forgotten how much he had taken, and taken even more – enough to overdose. This seems to have happened more than once as his nanny claims to have pumped his stomach to save his life numerous times. Excessive use of opiates would also explain his problems in controlling his spending as his working memory that would help him evaluate his financial decisions would be lost when under the influence of such drugs.
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Spare a thought for Jean who has tried all sorts of diet programs from Weight Watchers to the cabbage-soup diet. Every attempt has resulted in short-term success but long-term failure. Her doctor has given her several warnings about how her obesity will shorten her life. Yet she can’t seem to shed the weight.
You might be wondering: So what does working memory have to do with this?
More than you think. There are a growing number of studies linking working memory to dieting patterns. A study of healthy females found that those who dieted more frequently were more likely to have low working memory levels equivalent to those with anxiety and clinical depression. This means that a preoccupation with weight loss leads to working memory problems. These working memory problems can manifest themselves in a range of ways, from trouble focusing in conversations to forgetting simple instructions; even forgetting to stop by the store to pick up milk on your way home.
But before you pick up that third chocolate doughnut, this is not an endorsement to overindulge for your brain. Instead, if you are following a diet and eating plan, it is important to pick one that maximizes your working memory instead of reduces it. Another study found that a High-Carbohydrate/Low Fat diet is more likely to increase working memory skills compared to a Low-Carbohydrate/High Fat (such as the Atkins).
So eat for your working memory: pass on the bacon and pick the baked potato instead.
By admin
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Cutting-edge research has shown that working memory—the ability to store and manipulate information—is the most important learning skill a child can have. Working memory is the foundation of good grades and a successful life beyond the classroom. Without it, students would fail at every task, and with it they can dramatically improve their classroom performance.
How can you make working memory work for children?
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Lift the grades of your children and come to the seminar. Find out if your children are gifted and help them achieve their full potential. I will discuss unique and proven methods to give children the competitive edge. In a recent UK-wide study, students using JUNGLE MEMORY, a brain-training program based on my research and promoted by Pearson Education, improved from a grade C to a B, and a B to an A after just 12 weeks! It is the only training program scientifically proven to raise grades.
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Payment can be made on the day, however to reserve your space, please do email your name to: admin@memoryandlearning.com
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Susan Boyle’s break-down and odd behaviour during the final is not surprising. Like her, many people who struggle with learning disabilities can find it very hard to cope in difficult situations. Susan’s learning disability came about because she was deprived of oxygen at birth.
Scientific studies have found that even minor oxygen deprivation during birth can cause serious damage. People find it hard to stay focused on the big picture, remember important information, even keep track of what they need to do. Their language skills may be worse compared to their friends and they can struggle to keep up with conversations. Difficulty in processing and integrating information can cause someone to over react or explode over a well-meaning comment. As a psychologist, I receive lots of emails from adults, like Susan, who are frustrated and have even lost their jobs because they can’t remember things.
At the core of these difficulties is working memory. Working memory is our brain’s post-it note. We use those little yellow slips of paper not only to jot down important information, but also to work with it. Working memory has been found to be more important than IQ.
We use working memory in everyday situations, like staying focused during a meeting, solving a complex problem, responding to questions, even saying the right thing when we are distracted or feeling emotional. People with good working memory are able to make better decisions under stress and overcome frustration, and are less likely to be overwhelmed. As is clearly the case with Susan Boyle, working memory problems do not affect your ability to sing like an angel.
Imagine being in Susan’s position in front the whole world, and not having the ability to focus! What would you do? What would any of us do?
Can Susan improve her working memory to deal better with the stress of worldwide celebrity? Yes, she can. There is a lot of exciting evidence that shows that our brain can actually grow depending on what we do. The best way to grow our brain is through brain training.
Brain training has received a lot of interest lately and there is evidence that it works. One brain training program that I helped to develop to train working memory is JungleMemory(www.junglememory.com). In clinical trials, students go from a C to a B, or a B to an A in just 12 weeks! Just imagine what Susan can do with the right help. The sky’s the limit!
By admin
Cutting-edge research has shown that working memory—the ability to store and manipulate information—is the most important learning skill a child can have. Working memory is the foundation of good grades and
a successful life beyond the classroom. Without it, students would fail at every task, and with it they can dramatically improve their classroom performance.
How can you make working memory work for your students? home on the range movie download
Join me for a seminar sponsored by Pearson Education and the educational publishers Sage Press:
Working Memory: Give Your Students the Competitive Edge
Lift the grades of the whole class and come to this seminar. Find out how to identify gifted children and help them achieve their full potential. I will reveal unique and proven methods to give your students the competitive edge. In a recent UK-wide study, students using JUNGLE MEMORY (a brain-training program endorsed by Pearson Education), improved from a grade C to a B, and a B to an A after just 12 weeks! It is the only training program scientifically proven to raise grades.
Teachers around the world have said:
‘Dr. Alloway is excellent! Every educator should hear her.’ Educator, Massachusetts, USA.
‘Your research is a light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you!’ Sandie, South Africa.
‘Your work has struck a chord with many people. The news coverage of the training day means that the rest of the staff and parents now moreabout working memory than if I’d led a dozen staff meetings on the
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’ Chris, Headteacher, UK.
WHERE: 10th floor, Menara TA One, 22 Jln P. Ramlee, KL 50250.
WHEN: Saturday June 20, 2009; 9:30am to 1pm.
COST: RM$100, which includes 1 complimentary subscription to Jungle
Memory (a value of RM$115!)
Spaces are in high demand so please register early.
To register, please email: admin@memoryandlearning.com with the teacher’s name and the school name.
Payment can be made on the day.
By admin
In the last few years, there have been various claims in the media on how simple exercises like jumping jacks and balancing can make children smarter. In the UK, it was a matter of heated debate when a psychologist suggested that such exercise can actually improve reading skills. So is there any basis to these claims?
Well, yes and no. Let’s first look at the evidence for whether motor skills improve as a result of these exercises. If the exercise is simple like skipping, then you notice improvement in skipping skills very quickly. However, if the exercise is relatively complicated like hockey-puck shooting, then there is very little improvement, even after over 1000 practices!
What about learning? In a recent study, I asked students with learning difficulties and motor problems to take part in a 13-week exercise program. In addition to Brain Gym, they also did different balancing exercises, as well as trained their fine and gross motor skills.
You will probably not be surprised to learn that these students had better motor skills compared to the group that did not take part in this exercise program. However, these increased motor skills did not result in better reading and math scores! These students were still struggling in their academic attainments.
What does this mean? While I am certainly not discouraging exercise, this study, and a growing number like this, illustrate that it’s not enough to ask students to do some jumping jacks and skipping if we actually want to help them do better in the classroom.
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I was recently invited to write a blog for SharpBrains on a paper I published on this topic. Here is a copy of the blog post.
Working memory is our ability to store and manipulate information for a brief time. It is typically measured by dual-tasks, where the individual has to remember an item while simultaneously processing a sometimes unrelated piece of information. A widely used working memory task is the reading span task where the individual reads a sentence, verifies it, and the recalls the final word. Individual differences in working memory performance are closely related to a range of academic skills such as reading, spelling, comprehension, and mathematics. Crucially, there is emerging research that working memory predicts learning outcomes independently of IQ. One explanation for the importance of working memory in academic attainment is that because it appears to be relatively unaffected by environmental influences, such as parental educational level and financial background, it measures a student’s capacity to acquire knowledge rather than what they have already learned.
However little is known about the consequences of low working memory capacity per se, independent of other associated learning difficulties. In particular, it is not known either what proportion of students with low working memory capacities has significant learning difficulties or what their behavioral characteristics are. The aim of a recent study was to provide the first systematic large-scale examination of the cognitive and behavioral characteristics of school-aged students who have been identified solely on the basis of very low working memory scores.
In screening of over 3000 school-aged students in mainstream schools, 1 in 10 was identified as having working memory difficulties. There were several key findings regarding their cognitive skills. The first is that the majority of them performed below age-expected levels in reading and mathematics. This suggests that low working memory skills constitute a high risk factor for educational underachievement for students. This corresponds with evidence that working memory impacts all areas of learning from kindergarten to college. It is a basic cognitive skill that we need to perform a variety of activities, and we use it in core subjects like reading and maths, as well as general topics like Art and Music. Crucially, this pattern of poor performance in learning outcomes remains even when students’ IQ is statistically accounted. This fits well with evidence suggesting that working memory is even more important to learning than other cognitive skills such as IQ. For example, in typically developing students, I found that their working memory skills, rather than IQ, at 5 years old were the best predictor of predictor of reading, spelling, and math outcomes six years later.
The next major finding from the studies of students with working memory difficulties is that teachers typically judged the students to be highly inattentive, and have short poor attention spans and high levels of distractibility. They were also commonly described as forgetting what they are currently doing and things they have learned, failing to remember instructions, and failing to complete tasks. In everyday classroom activities, they often made careless mistakes, particularly in writing, and had difficulty in solving problems. In contrast, relatively few of the students were judged to exhibit the high levels of hyperactive and impulsive behaviors.
The final key finding is that students with working memory difficulties take a much longer time to process information. They are unable to cope with timed activities and fast presentation of information. As a result, they often end up abandoning the activities all together out of frustration. One way to overcome this difficulty is to provide them with a shorter activity and to allow for more time during tests.
Studies such as these demonstrate that students with working memory difficulties have an extremely high risk of making poor academic progress and are relatively common in the classroom - they represent approximately 10% of their age group in mainstream schooling. Without early intervention, working memory deficits cannot be made up over time and will continue to compromise a child’s likelihood of academic success. How can we support students’ learning? The first crucial step in supporting students with working memory impairments is proper diagnosis, which can be conducted by a school psychologist. However, at present working memory problems often go undetected in students or are misdiagnosed as attentional problems. There are several test batteries that can be used to assess working memory, including the Working Memory Index in the WISC. However, most assessment instruments that are currently available require considerable experience in the administration, scoring and interpretation of cognitive tests. One useful tool to identify and support students with working memory impairments is the Automated Working Memory Assessment (AWMA; Alloway, 2007 published by Pearson) download flood free . The benefit of the AWMA is that it is designed to provide a practical and convenient way for non-expert assessors such as teachers to screen their pupils for significant working memory problems, with a user-friendly interface. The automated presentation and scoring of tasks provide consistency in presentation of stimuli across participants, thus reducing experimenter error. The AWMA was used in the study described here, as well as in numerous peer-reviewed journal articles on the role of working memory in learning, anxiety, and development in typical and clinical populations.
The main goal of this article was to explore the link between working memory and academic performance. On the basis of a large-scale screening study of over 3000 student, 10% were found to have working memory impairments that jeopardize their chance of academic success. The majority perform below age-expected levels in all areas of learning and struggle to follow simple instructions in the classroom. These difficulties highlight the need for early assessment to identify those at risk. In a future article, I will discuss ways to help students with working memory problems, inc luding clinical trials demonstrating successful transfer of cognitive training to academic attainments.
REFERENCE: Alloway et al. (2009). The cognitive and behavioral characteristics of children with low working memory. Child Development, 80
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I was recently asked to contribute a piece for the British Psychological Society on working memory in the workplace. Here is an excerpt:
In the workplace, we use working memory to stay focused during a meeting, to creatively solve a complex problem, to respond to questions thoughtfully, even to recall the name of an important client when we are distracted at a meeting. Those who are better at remembering and working with new information do better in business. They tend to have higher paying jobs because they are better suited to adapt to the challenges before them. Able to make clearer judgments, they can more quickly come up with appropriate solutions. They are able to make better decisions under stress and overcome frustration, and are less likely to be overwhelmed.
But what can we do actually improve our working memory? There is a lot of exciting evidence of our brain’s plasticity: that it can actually change – shrink or grow – depending on what we do. For example, there are studies that show taxi drivers brains ‘grow on the job’ as they build up detailed information they need to navigate around a city. If you want to start seeing improvements, you need to do something. Here are some top tips to unlock your working memory and better in your job
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Research shows that people stay sharper and more mentally focused when they pick up a pencil to do a daily crossword. Never done one before? Start with an easy one and keep challenging yourself with progressively harder ones.
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Puzzles like sudoku are mini workouts for your brain: they train you to think quickly and will result in faster reaction times and memory functions in a range of daily activities.
3. Doodling
We usually associate doodling with not paying attention but in fact recent evidence suggests that doodling can help us stay on track. When we are bored, perhaps at a long meeting or dull conversation, we are more likely to daydream, which will distract us from what we need to listen to. However, doodling can stop daydreaming without affecting our listening skills, and as a bonus, we are more likely to remember the information. So get out your pencils, just don’t let anyone see you!
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Brain training computer games are at an early stage of development and can result in better working memory and IQ. But be cautious as the program may just be training you to perform well in the test, and not actually improve job performance. One program that has shown to make a difference in the real world is JungleMemory. This training program, endorsed by the Psychological Corporation, and targets working memory in key learning activities, such as reading and math. Pilot trials on several hundred children indicate improvements in the classroom as well. An adult version is currently in development.
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Asperger Syndrome (AS) is one of the Autistic Spectrum Disorders and is characterized by a pattern of difficulties. Individuals with Asperger Syndrome tend to have difficulty in social situations, particularly in showing empathy, and also have trouble communicating. Children with AS can be delayed in learning language. This means that it takes them much longer to learn vocabulary and grammar compared to their peers.
What is their working memory like? It is important to remember that some individuals with AS are considered as high-functioning. This means that their IQ is average or above average. I recently published a study on high-functioning teenagers with AS. I tested their working memory by asking them to remember different patterns and word sequences using a computer test
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. The findings were very surprising. People usually think that individuals on the Autistic Spectrum Disorder have amazing memory (think ‘Rain Man’ with Dustin Hoffman).
In fact, what this study showed was that the majority of the teenagers with Asperger Syndrome (AS) struggled in verbal memory tasks. They found it very difficult to remember a sequence of numbers or words. What does this mean? The combination of poor verbal memory and social difficulties mean that individuals with AS will have a hard time learning language and remembering words and sounds, much like those with dyslexia.
The good news is that they do have strengths in visual memory, and can even have above average visual memory skills. Computerized programs that use visual demonstrations to build vocabulary and use language are really effective ways in helping individuals with AS. Some psychologists are also looking at how robots can be used to teach children with autistic spectrum disorders and these individuals prefer interacting with them.
READ MORE ABOUT THE STUDY
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Individuals with dyslexia often have difficulty in understanding the sound structures of words. In particular, they struggle in a skill known as segmentation and blending: breaking up words into smaller segments (e.g., c from –at) and putting them together. This skill is tested using ‘spoonerisms’. Try some yourself—exchange the first letter in each word.
Fat Dog = Dat Fog
Here are some more, see how quickly you can do them (answers are below)
• Cat flap
• Bad salad
• Soap in your hole
• Mean as custard
• Plaster man
• Flock of bats
• Chewing the doors
Why do children with dyslexia struggle? One explanation is that they have poor working memory so they struggle to hold all the sound segments in their head while they are doing the spoonerism task. Someone with dyslexia described it like this: “If I can’t see the word, I really struggle. I have to picture it before I can read it“. The process of keeping two words active in our mental post-it-note, combined with trying to exchange the first letter proves much too difficult for most dyslexics.
So much of language learning relies on working memory. When we learn new words, we have to remember each sound segment, put it together, learn the meaning, and finally remember what it looks like for future use! Someone with poor working memory, like the person with dyslexia, struggles because they simply don’t have a big enough mental post-it-note (working memory) to cope with all these steps.
ANSWERS: Flat cap; Sad ballad; Hope in your soul; Keen as mustard; Master plan; Block of flats; Doing the chores
