Tracy Packiam Alloway, PhD

Here is a link to an article on my research that appeared in the Sunday Post, UK.

Have you ever caught a student doodling in the middle of a lesson? Well now scientific research supports their efforts to stave off boredom. A recent study compared the working memory of two groups of people: doodlers and non-doodlers. Both groups were asked to listen to a pre-recorded phone message about a birthday party and asked to remember the names of the people coming. The doodling group more names and places mentioned in the phone message compared to the non-doodlers. Doodling while listening can be beneficial because it helps the individual focus and maintain attention instead of tuning out altogether. It is not a demanding activity and acts like a buffer that prevents other activities like daydreaming to interfere with what you have to remember. So if you are worried that a student will start ‘zoning out’ during class, hand them a pencil!

J Andrade (2009) Applied Cognitive Psychology

The 3Rs: reading, writing, and arithmetic. We all remember going to school and trying to memorize spelling words and our times tables, to write a coherent paragraph and to calculate our long division. But for some students, this clearly isn’t enough. Despite the focus on the 3Rs why do we still see so many students diagnosed with learning disabilities? Furthermore, why do these students fail to improve after one-to-one instruction or tutoring?

In a recent study that I conducted, I looked at a group of students from 8 to 11 years with learning difficulties. All the students were receiving extra educational support, like tutoring and special classes. I tested their IQ, working memory, and also looked at their grades in the 3 Rs. These students received special tutoring in small groups for the next two years. Yet, when I saw these students two years later, there were still performing at the bottom of the class! Their learning outcomes had not improved, they were still struggling. Except now they were becoming more frustrated because of their learning difficulties and this was manifesting itself as behavior problems, including truancy.

What happened to these students? Why didn’t they show any improvement?

I found that it was their working memory scores, but NOT their IQ, that determined their grades. If they had poor working memory, they struggled in reading, writing, and math. It didn’t even matter what their IQ was. Working memory was the critical skill linked to their learning.

What does this mean? Simply, that focusing on teaching reading and math isn’t enough. That ‘hard work’ without focusing on working memory is just hard work. That drilling the 3Rs without improving working memory is like entering a bike race with flat tires. This is not to say that the 3Rs are unimportant. They are! Even a child with the high working memory needs to learn the 3Rs to do well in school and life. However, if we don’t develop working memory skills, the 3Rs won’t make a difference.

*TP Alloway (2009) European Journal of Psychological Assessments. READ

It’s wonderful to hear strategies that teachers found useful in the classroom and I thought that I would share one of them with you. This is from Alison, a Special Need Teacher in Scotland.

“I was trying to teach initial blends to a child with enormous difficulties perceiving the two sounds in initial blends. The task was to identify whether 2 and then which 2 out of 3 words begun with the same blend. Initially I introduced this task orally but quickly realized that if I put out pictures of the words it reduced the memory load and he was able to focus on developing the key skill.  Similarly word tracking tasks where I would like the child to change a letter to make a new word were enormously difficult and threatening for this child. He became distressed when I repeated the words in an attempt to help him. Making a visual picture strip of the word sequence helped to reduce the memory load and enabled him both, to feel a greater sense of control and to focus on the ‘working’ part of the task rather than the ‘memory’ part.”

Have you found something that worked in your classroom? I would love to hear about it.

The Automated Working Memory Assessment (AWMA) is a computer-based assessment of working memory skills, with a user-friendly interface. This culture-fair tool provides a practical and convenient way for educational professionals to screen individuals for significant working memory problems. It is standardized for use with individuals from early childhood (4 years) to adulthood (22 years). To date, it has been translated into over 15 languages.

BENEFITS

1. The AWMA is quick

The Screener version is made up of 2 tests (Listening Recall and Spatial Recall) and takes less than 10 minutes to administer. The automated presentation of tests and automatic generation of a report with standard scores and percentiles make it easy to use.

2. The AWMA provides standard scores that identify students with a deficit

The AWMA is highly effective in identifying students at risk. In my own research, I have used the AWMA in a recent study to screen over 4000 students. The majority of those with poor working memory (identified using the AWMA) scored poorly on attainment measures (such as the WIAT and BPVS).  Scores on the AWMA reliably identify those who need extra support in the classroom, as well as those who take longer to process information.

3. The AWMA is reliable and valid

Test reliability refers to the consistency with which a test can accurately measure what it aims to do. If an individual’s performance remains consistent over repeated trials, it is considered to be reliable. The test-retest coefficients for the AWMA are high, indicating a consistency in measuring working memory skills. These coefficients are reported in the AWMA manual.

Test validity of the AWMA was established by comparing performance to the Working Memory Index in the WISC. The findings demonstrate that the AWMA is a valid test of working memory.

4. The AWMA has been used in many published articles in high-quality peer-reviewed journals, linking working memory to learning.

The AWMA is a well-established test in assessing working memory. Published research confirms that those with low scores on the AWMA score below-average in learning outcomes and take much longer to process information.

To find out more about the AWMA, a free demo and research articles, click here.

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

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’)

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

As a thank you to those who have been reading my blog, I have attached a 20% off voucher for a book:
Working Memory and Learning: A Practical Guide for Teachers

DOWNLOAD VOUCHER

Here are some comments about the book:

‘A clear and accessible account of current theory and research, which is then applied to children’s learning in the classroom….The range of strategies…are well grounded in theory derived from research and sit within a coherent conceptual model’ - The Psychologist

‘An easy to read yet informative book that explains the concepts clearly and offers practitioners ways to support those with poor working memory in the classroom’ - SNIP

`The topic of working memory nowadays tends to dominate discussions with teachers and parents, and both groups can helpfully be directed to this easy-to-read but serious text … (it) is likely to prove a turning-point in the management and facilitation of hard-to-teach children. In a situation muddied by ever-multiplying syndromes and disorders, this book delivers a clarifying and reassuring isolation of the major cognitive characteristic that cuts across all the boundaries and leaves the class teacher and SENCO empowered. I think very highly of the book and shall be recommending it steadily’ - Martin Turner, Child Center for Evaluation and Teaching, Kuwait