Tracy Packiam Alloway, PhD

I was recently invited to share my research on BBC Radio. Here are some details on the programme from the BBC website:

IQ TESTING

IQ testing has long been a controversial way of measuring intelligence, but now there are claims that there’s another, more accurate method of predicting academic success: working memory, or the capacity we have to learn. Dr Tracy Alloway, whose recent experiments showed that testing working memory predicted children’s grades more accurately than traditional IQ, speaks up for working memory. LISTEN

There is exciting research emerging on the benefit of brain training. The question is: what works? Is it enough to memorize numbers in backwards order? Previous research outlines programs where students remember number sequences for a few weeks. Although improvements in working memory were reported, there are clear limitations. Most notably, there was no transfer effect: training working memory did not improve academic attainment. This leads to the possibility that some brain training programs are just ‘training for the test’, which means you are just getting better at playing the training games.

In order to address this issue, I recently conducted a clinical trial with two groups of students: the Training group participated in a working memory training program (www.JungleMemory.com) and the Control group received targeted educational support (IEP). The two groups did not differ in their IQ, working memory, or academic scores pre-training.

Both the Training and the Control groups underwent 8-weeks of their respective training programs and then were retested on the IQ, working memory, and academic tests.

The results were dramatic. The Control group did not perform much better without intervention, and in some instances they performed even worse in math and working memory.

In contrast, the Training group demonstrated a clear improvement not only in IQ and working memory tests, but crucially in learning outcomes as well. Students on the working memory training program went from a C to a B, or a B to an A after just 8 weeks of training! This is an exciting step in demonstrating that the right brain training can significantly boost academic attainment.

The WISC is a standardized assessment of cognitive abilities in children aged 6 to 16 years and revised versions include the Working Memory Index.

DIGIT SPAN

The Digit Span test is a highly validated method of measuring aspects of working memory capacity, and is fast and reliable to administer. However, the method of combining forward digit span with backward digit span scores conflates verbal short-term memory and verbal working memory. This can artificially raise a student’s working memory score as they may do well on the forward digit span subtest, yet struggle in the backward digit span subtest.

LETTER-NUMBER SEQUENCING

This subtest draws heavily on the student’s knowledge of basic number skills and the alphabet. Students may perform poorly on this subtest, not because they have working memory problems, but because they struggle in remembering the alphabet or numbers in the correct sequence.

ARITHMETIC

The supplementary test, arithmetic, can also be calculated into the Working Memory Index. However, it is not clear that this test genuinely provides a direct measure of working memory measure, although it certainly would be expected that children with poor working memory would be slow to develop the necessary mathematical knowledge to support good levels of performance on this test. It is therefore not recommended that arithmetic test scores are interpreted as direct assessments of working memory.

There are other limitations to the Working Memory Index. One practical drawback is that the WISC-IV is cannot be used with children below 6 years. Another is the heavy reliance on verbal information. This raises the possibility that a student who has particular problems in handling verbal information mentally may perform at low levels on these tests simply because of the format of the material, and not because of working memory problems. For example, students who fail to develop language struggle greatly on these kinds of memory test that involve spoken language, but perform at entirely normal levels when the information that is being remembered is non-verbal - such as remembering a pattern in a grid or the location of an object on a screen. So although these children have substantial working memory problems, they are probably secondary rather than primary in nature, and they also have working memory strengths that would be undetected by administration of the WISC-IV.

Read more in Working memory and learning: A practical guide

We have all heard it before: the brain is a muscle and we need to exercise it. But is all mental exercise equal?

Before you spend your time and money, there are two important questions you need to ask yourself about the evidence of a brain training product.

1. Are you just getting better at the game?

Let’s say you play PacMan every day for a month. Sure, you’ll have a better score than when you first started out, but that doesn’t mean that you’ve actually trained your brain. All you’ve done is just improve your score in PacMan. A better assessment of whether the game is actually training your brain is to use a ‘benchmark’ test to measure improvement. For example, some psychologists test IQ before and after using a brain training game. If IQ improves, you can reasonably attribute this to playing the training program (presuming all other factors remain constant). I’ve looked at the benefits of Brain Gym*. Their claim is that it improves learning. However, when I looked at reading and math scores before and after using Brain Gym for 13 weeks, there was no improvement.

This leads us to the second question you need to ask yourself:

2. Is my improvement better than someone playing a non brain training game?

It is crucial to have a ‘control’ group. Ideally the control group should be doing something other than brain training. For example, if you want to investigate the benefits of brain training compared to doing crosswords, then the control group should do crosswords for the same amount of time as the group using the brain training program. This allows psychologists to accurately compare the results from the two groups and see if any improvements genuinely reflect the brain training program. In education, one school tried out a brain training program and suggested that learning improved. However, without a control group, we don’t know if this is because the students simply liked playing computer games instead of sitting in a classroom.

*Alloway & Warner (2008) Perceptual & Motor Skills READ

Read more about how Brain Training improves IQ, grades, and memory.

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Here is some information on my talk at the British Science Festival on Sunday, September 6, 12pm. If you will be attending the Festival, stop by and say hello. MORE INFO

The new IQ- working memory

We are on the cusp of a new scientific revolution in understanding how the brain works. Working memory, our ability to remember and manipulate information, is at the centre of this revolution. Brain training is a growing and exciting new area in scientific research. In particular, there is a lot of evidence of our brain’s plasticity: that it can actually change ”shrink or grow” depending on what we do. Discover how the brain responds to training and the best brain training tools for adults and children. See how by training your brain, you will be able to improve your prospects in classroom and in the workplace.

I will be speaking at the British Science Festival this year on ‘Working Memory: The New IQ’ and thought I would give you a little preview of some of the topics that I will cover:

*The Genetics of Working Memory
What makes Gordon Ramsay, chef extraordinaire and owner of multiple restaurants around the globe, so successful, while his brother ended up in a jail for drug dealing and then homeless on the streets of London? Is Gordon Ramsay’s success in life related to his working memory? Do the genes we inherit play a role? Identical twins have identical genes, whereas fraternal twins share about half their genes. I have conducted one of the few scientific studies on identical and fraternal twins to understand the role of family in determining our working memory.

*The Spiral of Working Memory
It may come as a surprise to find out that working memory is linked to clenched fists and uncontrollable rage. In fact, boys with poor working memory are at greater risk of physical aggression and juvenile delinquency. I am working with juvenile delinquents and we will learn how their poor working memory led them down an increasingly dangerous path of crime. Evidence from my research demonstrates this spiral effect: young boys with poor working memory make criminal choices which damage their working memory (e.g., through alcohol, drugs, etc), which lead to worse decisions and more extreme criminal behavior.

* Tyranny of Technology?
With our ever-increasing reliance on word processing to help us write grammatically correct sentences, Blackberries to remind us of our appointments, speed-dial so we don’t have to remember the phone numbers, a universe of information available with a few keystrokes, are we impairing our working memory? What is the trade-off: what we do give up when we rely on new technology? Do Twitter-driven brevity and YouTube clips reduce our ability to engage in everyday life? In fact, technology can dramatically improve our working memory. There have been an influx of computer games and programs that promise to train your working memory muscle to Olympian proportions. But do they deliver? We have devised the world’s first working memory game that is clinically proven to improve grades for students as well as IQ. We look at the science behind different programs to find out what works and what doesn’t.

*The Twilight of Working Memory
Most of us worry about losing our memory as we grow old. I know I do. Will I forget significant events, meaningful relationships, even or how to perform simple daily activities? Understanding what we can do to train our working memory can have a tremendous impact in preventing memory loss and delay the signs of dementia.

READ THE SCIENCE FESTIVAL BLOG

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?

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
subject. ’ 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.

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) . 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 , 606-621.

READ IT AT SHARPBRAINS

YOU CAN ALSO READ IT HERE AT SCIENTIA PRO PUBLICA (under ‘Psychology’)

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

1. Crossword puzzles
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.

2. Sudoku
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!

4. Brain training
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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