Working memory at 5 biggest predictor of academic success

[Cortina]

Have recently heard this. It's interesting that working memory and IQ are separate (although related).

Good news is studies have proved it's possible to improve a child's working memory.

Children with a poor working memory are often seen as those who don't listen & don't focus.

Indigo - I'm following the posts about your daughter with interest, particularly in relation to the supplements/ therapies.

One thing I wondered was does the EP/ TH/ you think the memory problem is getting the information in, or retrieval from memory ie. stuff never going in, or stuff in there, but not able to come out?

(hope that makes sense!)

That's a very good question :)

Although she has been assessed by the LEA SALT (speech and language therapist) and the LEA SpLD EP, neither of them tested her memory properly.

So I have to guess.

There was a problem with stuff going in. Which I think was purely a language problem. For example towards the end of Y3 I asked her what she did in maths today and she said 'I don't know, but on the board there was a 1 and a line and a 4' and in the beginning of Y4 she said 'I don't know what it's called but there was a line and a dot and a dot'

She did actually know how to do division, but just didn't know the word for it.

2 months after starting TH (Jan Y4) I asked her what she did in maths and she said 'fractions' and I said what did you learn about fractions and she said 'they have a numerator at the top and a denominator at the bottom'!

So basically previously she could just not learn new words.

Not sure if that explains why she couldn't learn her alphabet or graphemes. We didn't make any progress with them till march Y3 when we did auditory integration training. After that she was sudden,y able to learn (or remember) all her graphemes (ay, ee, or etc). AIT improved her hearing so that suggests to me that she couldn't hear clearly enough before hand to understand what 'or' etc were.

However in both cases it really appeared like her memory improved.

She can now talk about things that happened ages ago, ie before these treatments, so I guess the problem was she couldn't get the info out, rather than it didn't go in?

I also don't know how much of her problem before was a restricted vocab, so she couldn't say what she wanted to (because she couldn't learn new words) and very slow processing which meant she couldn't recall (eg graphemes) in a reasonable time frame, rather than couldn't recall them at all.

She also couldn't learn any words by sight. Ie in Y2 she was still learning to read the 45 reception words (it, is, in etc) (I know those words can be decoded - but I'm saying she could neither learn to decode them or learn them by sight/repetition).

Now she does learn words after reading them a few times. Particularly she will read or guess them correctly if they're repeated soon after.

I don't know what bit of memory stopped her from remembering words, or has improved to allow her to now remember them. Her visual memory?

She still looses her coat and jumper every single day. So there is still another bit of her memory which doesn't work at the moment........

But she was able to tell me a fair bit about the class trip to a Buddhist temple this week, and could tell me about Buddhism. Whereas in Y3 when they went on a class trip to a synagogue she Couldn't even tell me where they went or what religion it was a church for or anything at all about Judaism.

Another thing she really can't remember is where the keys are on the keyboard. She absolutely can't type because she has to hunt (a long time) for every single letter.

I'm sure that long and short term memory in general has a lot to do with educational success.

I know when I got to University my memory began to fail me but my friend had a brilliant memory. Amost photographic in fact. In the final exam he remembered almost perflectly the answer to a question that he had heard only once some 3 years before and and wrote an entire essay on it.

He got 99% in that exam. It was a bright guy but totally impractical in a laboratory. All fingers and thumbs.

Really the truth is that in an exam situation having a brilliant short term and long term memory is a huge advantage.

What is working memory,can somebody explain?Thanks.

This is a really interesting thread for me, I am beginning to think that along with her Speech and language problems this is exactly what dd is struggling with and I can't see how it is all going to pan out when she starts school in September nor how to go about helping her.

Her SALT doesn't touch on these areas at all.

I am often amazed at how little dd can remember, we have spent a good few months now trying to learn numbers 1-10 and the concentration it takes from her is incredible, you can see it on her face. Also I have tried to teach her to say the shortened version of her name when asked and not the long version that people can't understand and the effort it takes for her to not say the long version is immense.

I don't know how to help her

Well obviously you can google to find a proper defn. But I think it's about how much stuff in your very short term memory you can use.

Ie a standard test for memory is how many digits you can remember (digit span test)

Whereas the standard test for working memory is reverse digit span test, how many digits you can repeat backwards.

And that's normally smaller than the first. So you might (should) be able to remember 7 digits straight after you've listened to them. But when trying to repeat them in reverse order you could only get 5 right.

So your working memory is stuff that you can remember and use in a sensible way?

So very important in reading. When you get to the end of a sentence you need to not be able to repeat what it was, but to understand what it was

And very important in maths. You have to not just remember to add 4 and 3 you also have to be able to do it.

You use it to follow instructions. There are kids who can repeat instructions but can't follow them.....

Well, that's how I understand it anyway.

YouBroke - DDs incredibly poor memory before she started nursery was the first indication of her dyslexia problems.

Like you it was really obvious to us that DD had huge memory problems before she started school or nursery.

The only way to help your DD are alternative therapies like Tinsley House.

All school will do with her are memory games like 'I went to the shops and I bought.....' which you know won't help at all.

The memory games are useless as she can't remember the rules!

Yesterday we were trying to do numbers in a more visual way and without prompting she can't remember what she is supposed to be doing, even though it is laid out in front of her.

She had moderate hearing loss from birth that was only corrected recently but I can't believe it is all from that, dh thinks it runs in his family.

I have googled on the back of this thread and it mentioned problems with naming colours, we have big problems with that too.

How do you get referred for alternative therapies, do you need ed psyche report first?

Thank god for MN btw, left to our own devices I would know nothing.

Tinsley house - what NDD do they do and who is the practioner?

Intreged as it's hard to find an alternative to INPP who in my opinion over charge because they insist on £500 for the initial assessment which doesn't actually influence the treatment...

You don't get referred for alternative therapies. You pay for them yourself.

Tinsley House takes about a year and costs about £1,000 (spread over the whole year). This is pretty cheap for a neurodevelopment therapy.

Don't spend your money on a private EP report. (which costs £300 - £700) Spend that money (if you have it) on a neurodevelopment therapy.

If you don't have that kind of money there is still stuff you can do yourself, but it is obviously harder.

I know that, we have a practioner local to us that we've used. It's just trying to find an alternative for people who don't live any where near us or Tinsley House. My therapist charges £85 per visit and you get as long as you need , although if you need auditory integration using Johansen Sound Therapy that is £120 - so it would seem that Johansen charge £35ish per cd they produce for you.

INPP is a retained reflex therapy. I've done RRT with my 2 at the sound learning centre. It cost an absolute fortune. (much more than INPP) And did help, particularly DS.

However there is no question that TH has been more effective. Seeing as I'm doing the experiment with 2 kids at the same time it's very easy for me to see what has been caused by the therapy as opposed to them just maturing.....

TH is run by Robin Pauc and he invented the therapy. it's nothing like RRT. Apparently RRT is bottom up and TH is top down?

Certainly Robin does neurological tests on your DC then works out which precise bit if the brain is underperforming and then gives you exercises for that bit of the brain.

For example he normally starts with exercises to improve the cerebellum.

His books are 'is that my child' and 'the brain food plan'

TH has a few clinics over the UK and the world - in fact randomMess there is one near you in Ascot.

However there are of course still most people in the world who can't get to him. Which is why he tells you everything you need to get started in the brain food plan. That details the first 2 months of treatment and you should make good progress just by following that.

Another book with a fairly similar philosophy to TH is 'disconnected kids'. That again is a neuro development therapy you can do just by following the instructions in the book.

cheers that is a starting point. Unfortunately they are no where near the New Forest!

TH UK clinics

Indigo I was wondering if you could tell me the dose in mg of EPA you give your DC? And is it just EPA or DHA as well?

MY DS is Aspergers and there has been definite improvement that correlates to putting him Omega 3 fish oils (both EPA and DHA)

I'm using 500mg of vegepa which contains only EPA and no DHA.

This thread started over a year ago, and I have learnt a lot since then.

Basically, as you probably know, there have been thousands of studies on omega. One of the universities did a meta study of all the other studies and found that the studies that were most successful were the ones based on high EPA doses.

Plus the body can turn EPA into DHA but not the other way round.

I think there more research on the vegepa website. I also think they are the only brand which doesn't contain DHA. And you can only buy them online.

But basically the reason I switched to vegepa was because tH recommended it.

Oh, and you need magnesium and zinc with your omega.....

Thank you Indigo. I didn't know about vegpa, at the moment he takes 1200mg of EPA but that comes with 840mg of DHA, because it just comes together.

I tihnk I iwll spend the morning doing some research! It's good to get other people's experieinces. I do believe it has made a difference to DS, and that it wouldn't if I jus gave him the quantities in the one-a-day pills you can buy which only have 180mg or less of EPA in them.

I was hoping he got all the magnesium and zink he needed from a well balanced diet? I should check that again.

I def wouldn't recommend a supplement which has higher DHA than EPA.

It's unlikely he's absorbing enough magnesium and zinc form his diet, because the whole reason our kids need all these supplements is an absorption problem.

Does he have any bowel problems? Constipation, diarrhoea, wind, bloating?

We've had loads and loads and loads of threads about vitamins on the SN children board, so you can search them......

Daniel Willingham writes lots that is accessible about working memory and summarises some recent research in his blog.

www.danielwillingham.com/1/previous/2.html

Thanks for that link.

He talks about a study that claims that playing games to improve your working memory (like jungle memory) doesn't help......

No bowel problems Indigo, no problems at all actually with his health. Would that be a sign that he's not absorbing the minerals properly?

Yes. That's what I meant.

If he has any bowel problems than I'd assume he needs supplements.

But even if he doesn't have bowel problems he may benefit from zinc & magnesium. No harm in trying them for a bit and seeing if you can notice any changes.......

Basically I think it's reasonable to assume if he's defecient in omega he's likely to be defecient in zinc and magnesium.