Working memory (WM) skills vary by age and impact educational attainment. Children with poor WM often struggle in the classroom, having difficulties following instructions, keeping their place, and staying focused. They may be seen as inattentive, distractible, or having a short attention span. While WM training can improve scores, it does not necessarily translate to academic or everyday skills. For training to be effective, it may need to be embedded in educational activities and include metacognitive strategies and extensive practice applying lessons. Overall, WM capacity influences learning opportunities and academic progress.

1. Working memory skills and educational attainment
Susan Gathercole
MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge
Roadmap for Life, Swiss Cottage School, 15th May 2015

2. Key features of working memory
• Capacity to hold material in mind and manipulate as necessary for
brief period
- “Take the first right, second left after the lights, directly opposite
the church”
- “Put your sheets on the green table, arrow cards in the packet, put
your pencil away and come and sit on the carpet”
- Multiply two numbers
• Mental workspace
• Limited in capacity
• Catastrophic loss

3. WM skills vary:
Mean scores on WM test by age, with 10th & 90th
centiles bars
0.00
2.00
4.00
6.00
8.00
10.00
12.00
14.00
16.00
18.00
20.00
5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Age in years
Meanscore

4. WM and academic achievement
More than 80% of children with poor working memory fail to achieve
expected levels of attainment in either reading or maths, typically
both (Gathercole & Alloway, 2008)

5. 60
70
80
90
100
110
120
Low Average High
English attainment group
Meanscore
60
70
80
90
100
110
120
Low Average High
Maths attainment group
Meanscore
Gathercole et al. (2004):
Mean working memory scores as a function of English and
maths attainment groups, schools data from 11-year olds
Poor
Average

6. Classroom problems faced by children with low
WM
• Difficulties in following instructions
“Put your sheets on the green table, arrow cards in the packet, put
your pencil away and come and sit on the carpet.”
John (6 years) moved his sheets as requested, but failed to do
anything else. When he realized that the rest of the class was
seated on the carpet, he went and joined them, leaving his arrow
cards and pencil on the table.
Failures typically involve starting to perform instructions but failing
to complete.
The children know that they have forgotten

7. Classroom problems faced by children with low
WM
• Difficulties in following instructions
• Place-keeping difficulties
When the teacher wrote on the board Monday 11th November and,
underneath, The Market, which was the title of the piece of work, Nathan
lost his place in the laborious attempt to copy the words down letter by
letter: moNemarket.

8. Classroom problems faced by children with low
WM
• Difficulties in following instructions
• Place-keeping difficulties
• Teachers say: short attention span and distractible
“he’s in a world of his own”
“he doesn’t listen to a word I say”
“she’s always day-dreaming”
“with him, it’s in one ear and out of the other”

9. Classroom problems faced by children with low
WM
• Difficulties in following instructions
• Place-keeping difficulties
• Teachers say: short attention span and distractible
Why do these children struggle to learn?
• Fail to meet the working memory demands of many
structured classroom activities
• Leads to failure/ task abandonment
• Lost learning opportunities slow rate of learning

10. Characteristics of children with
poor working memory
• Poor academic progress
• Difficulties in following instructions
• Loses track in complex tasks
• Teachers say: short attention span and highly
distractible
“he’s in a world of his own”
“he doesn’t listen to a word I say”
“she’s always day-dreaming”
“with him, it’s in one ear and out of the other”

11. Working memory and inattention:
Different sides of the same coin?

12. ADHD:
DSM-IV symptoms of inattention
At least 6 of the following:
• Often does not give close attention to details or makes careless
mistakes in schoolwork, work, or other activities
• Often has trouble keeping attention on tasks or play activities
• Often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly
• Often does not follow instructions and fails to finish schoolwork, chores,
or duties in the workplace
• Often has trouble organizing activities
• Often avoids, dislikes, or doesn't want to do things that take a lot of
mental effort for a long period of time
• Often loses things needed for tasks and activities
• Is often easily distracted
• Is often forgetful in daily activities

13. Symptoms displayed by children
with poor working memory
 Often does not give close attention to details or makes careless
mistakes in schoolwork, work, or other activities
 Often has trouble keeping attention on tasks or play activities
 Often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly
 Often does not follow instructions and fails to finish schoolwork, chores,
or duties in the workplace
 Often has trouble organizing activities
 Often avoids, dislikes, or doesn't want to do things that take a lot of
mental effort for a long period of time
 Often loses things needed for tasks and activities
 Is often easily distracted
 Is often forgetful in daily activities
Gathercole & Alloway (2008), Gathercole, Alloway, Elliott, & Kirkwood (2008)

14. Teacher behaviour ratings
40
50
60
70
Oppositional Inattentive Hyperactive ADHD
MeanT-score
ADHD
Low WM
Average WM
Holmes, Alloway, Gathercole et al. (2010)

15. Improving WM: can it be done?
Cogmed
• Adaptive
• 8 tasks/115 trials per session
• 20-25 sessions

16. RCT of Cogmed training in low WM children (Dunning
et al., 2013: Mean gains in WM scores
Improvements in verbal WM persisted 12 months after training
But:
• no changes in classroom activities taxing WM including following
instructions
• no improvements even maths or reading, even after 12 months

17. How does training work?
• Neuroplasticity in working prefrontal-parietal network (Westerberg
& Klingberg, 2007)
• Promotes strategy development: more use of chunking following
training (Holmes & Dunning, 2014)

18. Memory training boosts connectivity of the
child’s brain at rest
Memory training enhances
connectivity between prefrontal cortex
(cognitive control), temporal and
occipital regions (visual processing),
using MEG
Astle et al., in press

19. How can we make WM training effective?
• by narrowing the transfer gap: embed training in
educational activities that depend on WM
• learn lessons from other fields of intervention:
i) metacognitive awareness
ii) extensive practice following training in applying
strategies to everyday activities

20. For more information:
Web materials, publications, events at the Centre for Attention,
Learning & Memory
Day workshop 16th June 2015: Understanding and helping children
with problems in attention, learning and memory

21. Weblinks
http://calm.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk
http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/susan.gathercole/