Poor working memory in 6 year old

[gato21]

Hi all. After a period of time where we thought he would eventually "get it" and be able to sit down to do a task on his own, we've finally given in and asked the school to have a look at our 6 year olds (Year 1) behaviour. They've come back suggesting that his working memory is very poor.
Does anyone have any suggestions other than memory games to help us strengthen his memory? It's impacting on being able to follow class tasks and his reading at the moment. I really don't want him to feel that he isn't succeeding and to feel that he can't do it (which unfortunately is where we are now).
Any thoughts/comments/suggestions gratefully recieved! Thanks

I have an 18yo with poor working memory, recall, and slow processing, amongst other things.
I can't say we have found anything to actually 'improve' it, though I'm not saying it isn't possible. The difficulty we found is that eg memory games just aren't fun if you have a poor working memory. I do wonder about those memory techniques like going on a journey, but those aren't working memory.

We did find that repetition and practice helps. Focusing on important things, you can't do everything. Recognising that some things like mental maths are always going to be hard / impossible.

DD finds things easier to take in if she reads and listens at the same time. So audio books with the actual book to read along to helps. She also tends to watch TV with the subtitle on too.

My DS (ASD) has a classic 'spikey profile'. His working memory has been measured at around 6% but his non verbal reasoning score was around 94%! I'm not sure if there are ways to 'cure' short term memory/processing speeds TBH. However, a few strategies the educational psychologist suggested that my DS uses are:

He has a small white board he carries around in his school bag. He can make notes on that at the start of each lesson to help him try and remember what he’s supposed to be doing. Then tick it off as he goes.

He also carries post it notes so his LSA/teacher can write down his ideas or some ‘starter sentences for him’ to help him with structuring his work.
He uses a laptop at home with voice recognition software to help him get ideas down without getting too ‘bogged down’ by the process of putting pen to paper, where to start etc. We then go through his notes to try and structure them.

Songs seem to help him with things like timetables.

My DS is a ‘visual’ learner so I try and find short videos online for topics he’s studying. BBC Bitesize is pretty good.

I am in regular contact with his teachers so I can try and support him at home - I try to find out what they’re going to be studying in class - eg what English text they will be doing so we can get ‘ahead’ by reading it at home/listening to the audio book or watching the film/buying a simplified version of the text. This way he has at least an idea of what’s going on in class so he isn’t so ‘panicked’ and can take a bit more in. That’s the theory at least!

The EP also said that it's important that his teachers praise him for effort rather than the amount of work he actually achieves.

Thank you, I thought it was only us who didn't like the memory games.

What age was your DD when this was noticed?

Thank you, that's a great non verbal reasoning score! I like the idea of getting ahead in class, may suggest that to the teachers. It does seem like there needs to be considerable effort at home as well as school.

My DD, who is adopted, was classed at Globally Developmentally Delayed when she went into care. So once she was with us, we were always playing catch up, but didn't know whether things were due to genetics, past experience or what.

Primary kept fobbing me off. Secondary did tests in y7 which showed various issues including working memory (though they didn't really share results with us properly for us to realise quite how bad things were).

Last year we got a full dyslexia/dyspraxia assessment done which showed what she has been up against all these years. She was always well behaved and worked hard, supported by us at home to revise for tests, so she kind of slipped under the radar. Without Covid we'd have done more assessments in y10, but everything went to pieces then.

DD1 who has dyspraxia diagnosed has difficulty remembering & following instructions. Primary didn't notice as she could just look across to what others were doing.
Having an instruction sheet she could tick off as she went helped her, as even having them up on the board didn't help as she lost her place.

Covid has had an ongoing impact to kids education, but it is so frustrating when you know that something could have been done to help.
Thank you, I know we've got a long journey ahead of us but it was something that I hadn't heard of until yesterday. I've got to keep remembering that this is just one symptom (we also have difficulties in reading and letter formation). He's being a bit of a pickle as some of the things that the teachers say he cannot do he's doing fine this morning!

What they can do in a nice quiet relaxed home, can be quite different from what they can do in a busy stimulating classroom.

There is working memory (eg holding numbers in your head for a calculation, or a sentence in your head to write down), and short term memory (holding steps 2 and 3 in your head whilst doing step 1), I understand they are subtly different.

Then there is processing speed - just being slower. If you interrupt their processing to prompt all it does is low things down as they have to start again.

Also audio processing - hearing and processing sounds.

Then of course dyslexia or dyspraxia which overlap in signs and can be co-morbid.

Both my DDs coped with home support at primary, issues started becoming more obvious in secondary and the gap was really obvious by the GCSE years. Ideally I should have pushed more for assessments in primary so it is great you are aware of issues now.

Getting ahead in class can be described as 'flip learning' (google it) and we found it helped too. They then went into lessons already knowing something, which made absorbing the details easier and gave them more confidence.

I'm glad we picked up that something wasn't right now, but it is a bit worrying that it is so evident in a 6 year old.
Your last line on confidence is so true, this all started as he was getting worked up so giving him a little bit of reassurance will make school go more smoothly. thank you for your thoughts.