As a consequence, their working memory becomes overloaded and the crucial information that is needed to guide the ongoing activity – such as the sentence they are attempting to write, or the sequence of instructions they need to follow – is lost (Gathercole, Durling et al., in press). The key issue is: Why? We suggest that the learning difficulties faced by these children arise because they are unable to meet the memory demands of many structured learning activities (Gathercole & Alloway, 2008). The majority of children with poor working memory are slow to learn in the areas of reading, maths and science, across both primary and secondary school years (Gathercole & Alloway, 2008 Gathercole & Pickering, 2000 Gathercole et al., 2004 Jarvis & Gathercole, 2003). However, it should be noted that the majority of children with the combined subtype of ADHD – the most commonly diagnosed category in the UK – do have working memory problems and the associated cognitive problems of the children described here (Holmes, Gathercole, Place et al., 2008). The children also do not show the high levels of either oppositional or hyperactive and impulsive behaviour associated with ADHD (Gathercole, Alloway et al., in press). The behavioural profile of the children is fairly constant and unlike disorders such as ADHD, tends not to fluctuate markedly from time to time or day to day. When identified via routine screening, the gender balance is fairly even, with a slightly greater proportion of males than females. Most of the children who fall in the lowest 10 per cent in terms of their working memory show the characteristics outlined in the box opposite. Recognising poor working memory in the classroom Those with poor capacities will therefore struggle to meet the heavy working memory demands of many situations, of which the classroom is a prime example. There is also a substantial variation in working memory capacity between individuals. Working memory may be useful and flexible, but information held in working memory is easily lost through distraction or overload. Working memory consists of several interacting subsystems that include specialised stores for verbal and visuo-spatial material, and an attentional component that controls activity within working memory (see Baddeley, 2000). This is a term that is widely used to refer to a memory system that provides a kind of mental jotting pad storing information necessary for everyday activities such as remembering telephone numbers, following directions and instructions, and keeping track of shopping list items while in the supermarket. Nathan is typical of the hundreds of children that we have encountered in schools in recent years as part of our research on the consequences of poor working memory on learning and behaviour.īefore considering the detailed characteristics of such children more systematically, it is important to describe what is meant here by working memory. In the years to come, it is likely that he will be identified as having special education needs in reading and maths in primary school, and he is at risk of poor educational achievements at secondary level, and of entering adult life with few academic qualifications. Nathan, a child who came to our attention through routine screening, has not been diagnosed as having a developmental disorder but is making only slow progress in most areas of classroom learning. Many teachers have pupils with similar profiles of behaviour and achievement to Nathan’s, but are unlikely to know that they have poor working memory, a problem shared by approximately 10 per cent of children. Nathan’s teacher says that he has a short attention span, and is easily distracted.

Often he loses his place in complex tasks, making errors such as skipping important steps or repeating them. He also makes errors in activities that involve remembering even small amounts of information at the same time as processing other material. He often fails to follow instructions such as ‘Put your sheets on the green table, arrow cards in the packet, put your pencil away and come and sit on the carpet’ typically, he will complete the first part of the instruction and proceed no further. He is working in the lowest ability groups in both reading and maths, and is struggling with many classroom activities. Nathan is a six-year old child in his second full-time year of school.

Backward digit span