Working Memory and Processing Speed

 

boy working

Working memory skills are used for all learning tasks. A child with weak working memory skills has to work harder than other students to keep information in mind, as rather than being able to both hold and process the information, the child is working hard just to hold the information. Many students with weak working memory skills lose new information before it can be processed, making learning difficult. When a child also has a slow processing speed, it becomes even harder to hold on tothe new information before it is lost.

My favorite theory of working memory is by Baddeley and Hitch (1974). They created a multicomponent model of working memory. This theory describes two “slave systems” for short-term storage of information, and a “central executive” which integrates and coordinates the slave systems. The slave systems include the phonological loop and the visuo-spatial sketchpad.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baddeley%27s_model_of_working_memory

The phonological loop stores phonological information (that is, the sound of language). The visuo-spatial sketchpad stores visual and spatial information. The important information presented by the current theories is that working memory can be strengthened with mental training. That is why a program like Cogmed can be effective for people with working memory weakness. However, in addition to building working memory skills, students need to learn metacognitive strategies to help them learn how to learn. Students who have weak working memory skills usually also have poor executive functioning skills, using metacognitive strategies can help build executive functioning skills. Here is a link to an article I wrote about metacognitive strategies.https://bitsofwisdomforall.com/2012/02/05/metacognition-helps-build-self-regulation-and-executive-functioning-skills/REPLY

Classroom Recommendations and Accommodations:

For students with Weak Working Memory Skills

  • Help students organize the information they hear in meaningful ways, including chunking the information into shorter steps or connecting new information with previously learned information.
  • Preview new concepts with students so they know what to expect – this will decrease stress and help with attention and engagement in the classroom.

For students with Weak Executive Function/Memory Skills/Processing Speed

  • Build strategies to help students analyze, prioritize, and execute specific steps in a given assignment.
  • Encourage students to think through responses and take their time; many students with processing speed issues develop a compensatory strategy to rush through in order to finish work in time; these students would benefit from slowing down to process the information more deeply.
  • Teach students to stop and read directions carefully prior to starting a task.
  • Break down tasks and follow the order-checking work along the way.
  • Build memory skills by building associations to preexisting knowledge.
  • Rehearse new information to help encode it.
  • Encourage students to visualize what they are going to do before they begin a task.
  • Teach students strategies to increase engagement such as use of reminders (which can be set on devices such as the iPhone) to help build attention, awareness, structure and independent work habits.
  • Teach students to use self-talk to organize learning and performance strategies and to focus attention on tasks.
  • Teach students strategies to help recall information, such as PAR:
    • P= Picture it.
      A= Associate it
      R= Review it.

For students with Weak Visual-Perceptual Strategies

  • Use of graphic organizers to depict information visually and increase retention of ideas.
  • Note-taking techniques that will present and summarize heard information visually.
  • Exercises to sharpen the ability to attend to visual detail and to express similarities and differences between images.

For students with Weak Processing Speed/ fine motor skills

  • Allow extra time for tests, usually time and a half.
  • Provide extra time for students to complete in-class assignments.
  • Train students in time management techniques to become aware of the time that tasks take.
  • Teach typing skills to enable students to type as fast as they think.
  • Allow students to use the computer for all writing tasks.

For students with Weak Organization of Language

  • Students may have excellent ideas but have difficulty organizing their thoughts. Building pre-writing will help them express their ideas more clearly.
  • Review of writing formats (Narrative, Expository, Descriptive, Compare/Contrast, Persuasive) would facilitate and structure written expression.
  • Reinforce the writing process for students in a systematic manner (Brainstorming or clustering, writing, editing). The Inspiration Program is a creative computer tool that helps students brainstorm and organize their ideas before writing.

For students with Weak Reading Comprehension Skills

  • The SQ3R approach is recommended as an approach to studying information from text books
  • Teach students to preview reading material
    prior to class to ensure they are able to follow along during class time
  • Teach students to take notes at the end of each chapter of books they read. This will not only aid comprehension but assist in studying or finding information quickly when writing an essay
  • Pull out keywords and main ideas while reading to help put what students are learning into context

Hopefully students’ academic achievement will improve as they build strategies to help overcome areas of challenge. Building the student’s ability, and developing strategies to understand directions is the first step to helping students start tasks. Teaching how to break down and organize the steps to complete tasks will allow students to finish the tasks they start. As these skills are developed, it is hoped that students will be able to complete tasks in a timely manner, thereby increasing their processing speed.

 

 

 

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Amy Rugh

Do you provide training for parents who have kids diagnosed with low working memory/slow processing ?

[…] Working Memory and Processing Speed – Bits of Wisdom for All […]

[…] difficulty getting started on tasks, both verbal and written. Kids with slow processing have a harder time getting things into working memory. Long-term memory is also impacted, as something needs to be understood in order for it to be […]

Dr Wee-Bin Lian

Great points in summary

Leslie Kerr

Wonderful info. We have soon to be middle schooler who is seriously struggling with reading comprehension and writing. He was diognosed with ADHD in 2nd grade and has made amazing progress. His 504 includes many of the things you mention and it has help him a ton. He is truly bright he just can’t get the ideas in his head organized and down on paper because of his low WMI and PSI. We are considering brain training and have seen conflicitng results. As he gets older and the work is harder and harder to keep up with it so we are will to try anything to help him. Would love to hear your thoughts.

FSIQ 98, 45th percentile
GAI 112, 79th percentile
VCI 96, 39th percentile
PRI 127, 96th percentile
WMI 77, 6th percentile
PSI 83, 13th percentile

Eileen

My daughter is in 9th grade. She was tested in 4th grade for Central Auditory Processing and they said she most likely had it but her verbal skills were low so they wouldn’t say conclusively. She had 40% diffusion in one ear and 20% in the other. She has low working memory and slow processing speed. She did the Cogmed, but her School test scores were not improved. I have started working with her on Mental Math because I saw she was very weak in the math fundamentals. In a couple of days, she was really doing great, remembering factors, adding and subtracting large numbers she wasn’t doing before. I figured out that she needs extreme repetition. Math is her weakest subject. She is at grade level in reading with the help of a very good school reading program. Writing is improving.(but Wechsler Intelligence Scale scores – fluid reasoning 69, Processing Speed 53, Verbal Comprehension 86, Visual Spatial 64, Working Memory 65 all composite scores. Again, she is a smart girl. I don’t believe the schools have been doing the best job nor have I in supporting her. I have told her now that she needs to get all homework assignments and tests corrected (and in math to have all the steps written in to be able to redo and practice at home). I see that she needs to practice much more the math problems so that more will go into auto memory She is passing all of her subjects. But fluid reasoning weaknesses reflect difficulty in independently drawing inferences from information, understanding the implications of an issue or actions and following a logical pattern through to another conclusions and impacts her ability to transfer and generalize information into new situations (test questions). So, I believe more efficient studying and repetition can help, but her biggest challenges will be on regents exams. I am going to purchase regents review books for all subjects. My son, who is in college told me that she can do practice questions by subject which will help her prepare for tests and the regents. I would appreciate any ideas you have that can help her with working memory. We started reading together out louder from Wall Street Journal and such, working on main ideas pronunciation and definitions. As I mentioned, reading is now grade level. Socially, she does have trouble with social cues and has difficulty relating stories or reporting events. I am interested in which books you would recommend I purchase. I am most interested in strategies and interventions I can help her with. Thank you very much.

Elizabeth S.

Dr. Mullin,\
I must let you know that your website is so informative and I subscribe to your articles. Thank you for this great information that has helped our family realize there is help out there for our daughter! If only we lived in Santa Monica, we would readily be at your center! Unfortunately, we are in Virginia Beach, VA and I need help finding a similar program to help build my 13 year, 10 month daughter’s processing speed and working memory functions. My daughter has suffered for years with low processing speed and below average working memory, anxiety, and inattentive ADD. As her parents, my husband and I have worked hard to ensure she has a detailed 504 plan in school, attends therapy regularly, and gets the support she needs at home with homework. She is on medication for anxiety and ADD now, after years of trying non-medicated remedies, but she still struggles with completing classwork and homework in a reasonable amount of time. She was administered the WISC and her scores were FSIQ- 123, Verbal comprehension -134, Perceptual Reasoning-135, Working memory -102, and Processing speed – 85. She is completely frustrated with the amount of time it takes her to complete a task, and is becoming unmotivated as the missing homework assignments pile up in the grade book. Our daughter is a perfectionist and she tries for hours and hours to get her classwork and homework done. She has difficulty remembering chapters that she just read, and trouble understanding new math problems in Geometry. She struggles with organizing her thoughts and writing essays, even when she has many great ideas swirling about in her head. She stays after school and uses her lunch period every day, Monday through Friday to complete unfinished tests and classwork. At home, she works on homework every night until 11 PM, but moves at a snail’s pace. She rarely gets any homework assignments completed.

She needs some type of brain training to build her processing speed and memory. We just tried our first testing session and consultation at a Learning RX program. Unfortunately, we were not impressed with the program and it felt more like a pushy sales pitch than an educational program. We are looking for a treatment program, or anything that can help her boost her executive functioning skills.

Our daughter is slowly giving up on herself and as a parent, it breaks my heart. Any suggestions?

Worried momma

Hi Dr. Mullin! We’re trying to figure out if my 7 yr old child needs help with processing and if it makes her bad at test taking and reading.

WISC-V scores: FSIQ 125; Verbal Comprehension 118; Visual Spacial 119; Fluid Reasoning 131; Working Memory 115; Processing Speed 92 (scaled scores: coding 9, symbol search 8).

DAS II scores: GCA 130; Verbal Scale 113; Nonverbal reasoning 139; Spatial Ability 125; Processing speed 109 (speed of info proc. 58, rapid naming 52)

She took CogAT and scored 115. Her verbal scores are her weakest area. She got a 102 which put her in 55% for her age and 47% for her grade. We think it’s connected to processing as her reading fluency is not strong. She reads like she cannot read.

Thoughts?

Inactive ADHD

This was helpful to me because my kids and I have inattactive ADHD and weak working memory with a slow processing speed. It is causing lots of difficulties with my son especially with spelling. It makes sense what you said about chunking the info in shorter steps and connecting with info they previously learned. Part of the problem with the spelling program at school is that there is so many different strategies they learn in one week. My son struggles more with working memory then other types of memory. So the backwards numbers and remembering multiple things are more of problem then straight up repeating back or memorizing lines.

I have not got my older child tested officially like my son but she does have inactive ADHD. I know my working memory and processing speed is much weaker then everything else too. My older child does ok academically except for reading comprehension which I see you mention. My son excels in comprehension with this profile. What is the SQ3 approach?

Is there anything besides Cogmed which is out of the budget that can improve working memory? Are there any games or similar programs that ate more affordable? I really feel improving the working memory will make a big difference.