Poor working memory... what do we do?

[Lineofbeauty]

Very grateful for any thoughts... Dd10 really struggles to follow a chain of verbal instructions. An example, if I ask her to brush her teeth, then put on shoes, then put the bread away... she won't even manage the first quite often. In class she really struggles and loses what she is supposed to be doing and her classmates get annoyed with her "not concentrating" and asking then what she is supposed to be doing, although she is clearly trying quite hard. She says she fees stupid when this happens.

Oversll she is doing ok academically. good at reading (although misses out words). Spelling pretty bad. Mental maths is good as long as she can process while going along.. less So if there are multiple verbal steps to follow.

I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to help her. I've always had the sense that she is underachieving relative to her intelligence, for want of a better word.

DS has no such issues, he can outspell DD and follow very complex instructions. He is her polar opposite.and he is nearly 3 years younger.

Does anyone have any ideas how I can help her before she goes up to secondary school and drowns?

Have you tried or do you think visual aids may be appropriate? For example you could have a now, next, later board for tasks. To use your example 'now brush teeth', 'next put on shoes' 'later put bread away'. This may help her process the information easier as she can visualise the tasks.

Could her teacher write down what she is meant to be doing so she can refer back to it. Would she be able to write tasks down to refer back to herself.

Teachers need to provide her with a step by step list or visual prompt. Is she getting learning support to help her develop strategies for planning and thinking tasks through, rechecking which stage she has completed and what is next.

For routine tasks like dressing try getting her to remember one step at a time, then a few days later a second step and so on. Keep a checklist by the door for what she needs to take to school each day.

Thankyou both , they are really good suggestions...

I'll speak to her teacher about providing prompts although I always feel like a stuck record. There is quite a high ratio of kids with SEN and socisl/emotional needs in her class and I fear because she is coping she is being left to fend for herself.

Visual aids and lists/ written instructions are a great idea and actually she has worked this out for herself as I find little lists around that she has written for herself:) She is ace, honestly, very self motivated and tries so hard.

With working memory difficulties you basically have two options (or of course, a combination of both).

Firstly, you can try to improve her working memory capacity. Most of the research says that this is very difficult to do, unless you are working within the activity that you actually want to improve. There’s an intervention called Lucid Memory Booster which has some empirical support - it’s a computer based programme that aims to boost memory, I think it’s about £25 for the home version. Alternatively you can do some activities that require her to build her ability to retain more than one step in an instruction. So for example, you could get a colouring sheet and begin by saying ‘colour the dog red’ and extend this to ‘colour the dog red and then the cat blue’, ‘after you colour the cat blue and the turtle green, colour the zebra black’. Help her to use methods to remember these instructions eg repeating it back to you - there’s no point just letting her fail at it, it’s all about developing her skills in doing this. Another way is shape bingo - if you pm me I can point you in the direction of some templates but basically she will have a bingo sheet of some shapes and you read out the criteria eg a small red triangle (she may pick a small triangle but miss the small instruction, for example).

Your other approach is to teach her methods to compensate for these difficulties - like the suggestions that have already been mentioned. Lists are great, as are encouraging her to make notes. In class, is she is struggling to remember the steps in a task, she could (depending on age and ability) make a note of each step on a post it note eg. 1. Write date, learning objective and underline 2. Complete questions 1-10 3. Check my answers 4. Complete challenge task 1.

As she completes each task she can bin the post it notes. Alternatively this can be done on a white board - you could ask if she can have a whiteboard on her desk to make notes and I’d teach her how to do this effectively at home. You could give some instructions and get her to note down key points, or read a paragraph and do the same. Note taking is a good skill for her to have.

Checklists are great. Thinking time is also great - we can be afraid of silence and I used to ask the children in my class to think about their answer in their heads until I counted to 5 so that they had that thinking time before putting hands up to answer.

You can also approach it by trying to reduce the cognitive load of tasks - this is the stress being placed on her working memory.There are lots of online articles about this (such as nobaproject.com/blog/2017-12-06-cognitive-load-theory-and-nbsp-applications-nbsp-in-the-classroom) but one thing I find particularly interesting is the idea that having a copy of the information on the board in front of her may actually not be a good thing - a requirement to listen and read at the same time has a high cognitive load. It may be useful for her to be aware of some of these things, so for example when the teacher is talking she should focus on listening, and then perhaps read the information after as a recap, but not do both at once. This is useful to know when completing homework for example - it can be tempting to read the instructions to the child as the read them but actually this can make things more difficult. It may be more useful to ask her to read it to herself, and then ask her what the instructions are telling her to do so you can check her understanding and she can reinforce this understanding.

I hope this is helpful - she sounds like a lovely girl.

Brilliant advice from Skeleton...to which I can only add, habit formation.

Try to habituate as much as possible as this reduces the demand on working memory.

So, in terms of her organisational skills, teach her how to organise her belongings on her desk (e.g. use an A3 sheet of paper and mark out where everything 'lives' for doing homework etc.) .
In this way, there is no demand for switching attention (e.g. "where is my red pen, where is my eraser" everything has a place).

Do the same for the contents of her bag, the layout of her bedside table, her locker at school (if she has one...but will definitely be a skill she needs next year).

@SkeletonSkins thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed and helpful post. Lots to think about.

@BaronessBlonde ditto for your post.

I really appreciate it.

Have you ever considered absence seizures? They are a form of epilepsy that make it seem that kids aren't concentrating and daydreaming but actually they aren't actually present despite being conscious if you know what i mean.
My son had them for several months before diagnosis and i would never have known. His memory and ability to learn was severely affected and i was beginning to wonder if he had a learning disability but there was nothing visible.
He only got diagnosed when he had a more 'classic' seizure but lots of people only have absences.
He is back to normal now he is on medication and has made up all the lost learning so we are hoping he stays stable and this continues.
Young epilepsy is a great charity so it might be worth looking at their website and seeing if absence seizures seem like they might be relevant for your daughter.
Obviously this might not be the thing for you at all but i sometimes think where we might be without the more obvious symptoms as no one, not the school, me or my ex gp mother thought there was anything medical going on. Hence i want to spead the word about the existence of absence seizures!
Good luck and hope things improve for your daughter.