Boys are from Mars and Girls are from Venus?
There is a long-standing view that boys and girls learn differently. Some people suggest that the fact that so many more boys compared to girls are diagnosed with learning difficulties such as ADHD and dyslexia points to a lack in the education system in supporting a different learning style for boys. Boys just don’t learn language in the same way as girls and as a result struggle to keep up in the classroom.
There is now scientific support for this view: a recent study looked at different parts of the brain that boys and girls use when they do language tasks.* They used brain imaging (fMRI) to look at what part of the brain is activated during writing and spelling. They found that when learning language, boys are more sensory and girls are more abstract. Of course this has major implications for learning and teaching.
What about working memory? Do boys also struggle more in working memory compared to girls? Actually they don’t.** In a recent government-funded study, I surveyed over three thousand children, found that ten per cent of school children across all age ranges suffer from poor working memory seriously affecting their learning. Nationally, this equates to almost half a million children in primary education alone being affected. However, girls are just as likely to struggle with working memory as boys.
The key is to support these students so they can achieve their potential. However, poor working memory is rarely identified by teachers, who often describe children with this problem as inattentive or as having lower levels of intelligence. There is a new tool, a combination of a checklist and computer program informed by several years of concentrated research into poor working memory in children, will for the first time enable teachers to identify and assess children’s memory capacity in the classroom from as early as four years old.
The checklist, called the Working Memory Rating Scale (WMRS), will enable teachers to identify children who they think may have a problem with working memory without immediately subjecting them to a test. A high score on this checklist shows that a child is likely to have working memory problems that will affect their academic progress.
If the teacher feels significantly concerned about a child’s performance in class, he or she can then get the child to do the computerized Automated Working Memory Assessment (AWMA). The tools also suggest ways for teachers to manage the student’s working memory loads which will minimize the chances of children failing to complete tasks. Recommendations include repetition of instructions, talking in simple short sentences and breaking down tasks into smaller chunks of information.
*J. Booth & T. Bitan (2008). Neuropsychologica
** T.Alloway (2009). Child Development
