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Alloway, T.P. (2007). Automated Working

Memory Assessment. London:Harcourt.

Alloway, T.P., Gathercole, S.E. &Kirkwood, H.J. (2008). A workingmemory rating scale for children.Manuscript submitted for

publication.Archibald, L.M. & Alloway, T.P. (in press).

Comparing language profiles:Children with specific language

impairment and developmentalcoordination disorder. International

 Journal of Communication and

Language Disorders.

Archibald, L.M. & Gathercole, S.E. (2006).Short-term and working memory inspecific language impairment.

International Journal of Communication Disorders, 41.675–693.

Baddeley, A.D. (2000). The episodic

buffer: A new component of workingmemory? Trends in Cognitive

Sciences, 4, 417–423.Gathercole, S.E. & Alloway, T.P. (2008).

Working memory and learning: A

 practical guide for teachers. London:Sage.

Gathercole, S.E., Alloway, T.P., Kirkwood,H.J. et al. (in press). Attentional andexecutive behavioural profiles ofchildren with poor working memory.

Learning and Individual Differences.

Gathercole, S.E., Brown, L. & Pickering,S.J. (2003). Working memoryassessments at school entry aslongitudinal predictors of NationalCurriculum attainment levels.Educational and Child Psychology, 20,

109–122.Gathercole, S.E., Durling, M., Evans, S. et

al. (in press). Working memoryabilities and children’s performance

Poor working memory skills

are relatively commonplace in

childhood, and have a substantial

advance impact on children’s

learning. This article describes the

profile of cognitive and behavioural

characteristics associated withworking memory, methods for

assessing working memory skills,

and ways of supporting the

learning needs of children affected

by this problem.

Nathan is a six-year old child in hissecond full-time year of school. Heis working in the lowest ability

groups in both reading and maths, and isstruggling with many classroom activities.He often fails to follow instructions suchas ‘Put your sheets on the green table,arrow cards in the packet, put your pencilaway and come and sit on the carpet’;typically, he will complete the first partof the instruction and proceed no further.He also makes errors in activities thatinvolve remembering even small amountsof information at the same time asprocessing other material. Often he loseshis place in complex tasks, making errorssuch as skipping important steps orrepeating them. Nathan’s teacher says thathe has a short attention span, and is easilydistracted.

Many teachers have pupils with similarprofiles of behaviour and achievement toNathan’s, but are unlikely to know thatthey have poor working memory, aproblem shared by approximately 10 percent of children. Nathan, a child who cameto our attention through routine screening,has not been diagnosed as having adevelopmental disorder but is making onlyslow progress in most areas of classroomlearning. In the years to come, it is likelythat he will be identified as having specialeducation needs in reading and maths inprimary school, and he is at risk of pooreducational achievements at secondary

level, and of entering adult life with fewacademic qualifications. Nathan is typicalof the hundreds of children that we haveencountered in schools in recent years aspart of our research on the consequences

of poor working memory on learningand behaviour.

Before considering the detailed

characteristics of such children moresystematically, it is important to describewhat is meant here by working memory.This is a term that is widely used to referto a memory system that provides a kindof mental jotting pad storing informationnecessary for everyday activities such asremembering telephone numbers,following directions and instructions, andkeeping track of shopping list items whilein the supermarket. Working memoryconsists of several interacting subsystemsthat include specialised stores for verbaland visuo-spatial material, and anattentional component that controlsactivity within working memory (seeBaddeley, 2000).

 Working memory may be useful andflexible, but information held in workingmemory is easily lost through distractionor overload. There is also a substantialvariation in working memory capacitybetween individuals. Those with poorcapacities will therefore struggle to meetthe heavy working memory demands of many situations, of which the classroomis a prime example.

Recognising poor working

memory in the classroomMost of the children who fall in thelowest 10 per cent in terms of theirworking memory show the characteristicsoutlined in the box opposite. Whenidentified via routine screening, thegender balance is fairly even, with aslightly greater proportion of males thanfemales. The behavioural profile of thechildren is fairly constant and unlikedisorders such as ADHD, tends not tofluctuate markedly from time to time orday to day. The children also do not showthe high levels of either oppositional or

hyperactive and impulsive behaviourassociated with ADHD (Gathercole,Alloway et al., in press). However, itshould be noted that the majority of children with the combined subtype of 

   r   e    f   e   r   e   n   c   e   s

Working memoryin the classroomIn her Presidents’ Award Lecture at the Annual Conference, Susan E. Gathercole

looked at identifying and supporting children with poor working memory

   r   e   s   o   u   r   c   e   s

   q   u   e   s    t    i   o   n

Gathercole, S.E. & Alloway, T.P. (2008).Working memory and learning: Apractical guide for teachers. London:

Sage.www.york.ac.uk/res/wml

What kinds of classroom activitiesimpose heavy demands on workingmemory?

 A

 R T I C L E

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presidents’ award

ADHD – the most commonly diagnosedcategory in the UK – do have workingmemory problems and the associated

cognitive problems of the childrendescribed here (Holmes, Gathercole,Place et al., 2008).

The majority of children with poorworking memory are slow to learn in theareas of reading, maths and science, acrossboth primary and secondary school years(Gathercole & Alloway, 2008; Gathercole& Pickering, 2000; Gathercole et al., 2004; Jarvis & Gathercole, 2003). The key issueis: Why? We suggest that the learningdifficulties faced by these children arisebecause they are unable to meet thememory demands of many structuredlearning activities (Gathercole & Alloway,2008). As a consequence, their workingmemory becomes overloaded and thecrucial information that is needed to guidethe ongoing activity – such as the sentencethey are attempting to write, or thesequence of instructions they need tofollow – is lost (Gathercole, Durling et al.,in press). Because information ispermanently lost from working memorythrough overload or distraction, it will notbe possible for the child to proceed with

the activity and to see it through to asuccessful conclusion unless they are ableto access again the critical task information

that is needed. The child is therefore forcedeither to guess at this point (a strategy thatis likely to lead to errors) or to abandonthe task before its completion. Activityfailures such as these represent missedlearning opportunities for the child, andthe more frequent they are, the more thatlearning will be delayed.

One striking finding across manystudies has been that the children withpoor working memory that we haveidentified via routine screening are rarelydescribed by their teachers as havingmemory problems (Gathercole et al.,2006). Rather, they typically report thechildren as having attentional problems,using descriptions such as ‘it’s in one earand out of the other’ and ‘just doesn’t listento a word I say’. These descriptions fit wellwith recent evidence that individuals withlow working memory spans were muchmore likely to engage in mind-wanderingwhen performing demanding cognitiveactivities (Kane et al., 2007). Thisphenomenon has been termed ‘zoning out’,and appears to be a hallmark of situations

in which working memory is sooverloaded that it is no longer possible tokeep in mind the information needed toguide an ongoing mental activity. It seemslikely that the inattentiveness of childrenwith poor working memory arises for justthis reason: the children lose the crucialinformation needed to guide the ongoingactivity, and so shift attention away fromthe task in hand. In this way, memory lossmay masquerade as failures of attention.

Assessing working memory problemsTechniques developed in recent yearsprovide a reasonable degree of choicein the nature and level of detail of theworking memory assessment, which arenow also open to a wider range of users.One new development is that workingmemory problems can now beenassessed indirectly, using knowledgeof the children’s classroom behaviours.Behaviour rating scales are now availablethat require teachers to rate thefrequency of problem behaviours

associated with poor working memory.The two scales that are available arethe Working Memory Rating Scale forChildren (Alloway et al., 2008), andthe working memory subscale of the

in laboratory analogues of classroomactivities. Applied Cognitive

Psychology.

Gathercole, S.E., Lamont, E. & Alloway,

T.P. (2006). Working memory in theclassroom. In S. Pickering (Ed.)Working memory and education.

London: Academic Press.Gathercole, S.E. & Pickering, S.J. (2000).

Working memory deficits in childrenwith low achievements in the

national curriculum at seven years ofage. British Journal of Educational

Psychology, 70, 177–194.Gathercole, S.E., Pickering, S.J., Knight,

C. & Stegmann, Z. (2004). Workingmemory skills and educationalattainment: Evidence from National

Curriculum assessments at 7 and 14years of age. Applied Cognitive

Psychology, 40, 1–16.Gioia, G.A., Isquith, P.K., Guy, S.C. &

Kenworthy, L. (2000). Behavior Rating

Inventory of Executive Function. Lutz,FL: Psychological AssessmentResources.

Holmes, J., Gathercole, S.E., Dunning,D.L. & Klingberg, T. (2008).Generalised benefits of training

working memory in low memory children. Manuscript in preparation.

Holmes, J., Gathercole, S. E., Place, M. etal. (2008). Working memory deficits

can be overcome: Impacts of training

and medication on working memory in

children with ADHD. Manuscriptsubmitted for publication.

Jarvis, H.L. & Gathercole, S.E.(2003).Verbal and non-verbal workingmemory and achievements on

national curriculum tests at 11 and14 years of age. Educational and Child

Psychology, 20, 123–140.Kane, M.J., Hambrick, D.Z., Tuholski,

Poor workingmemory profileI Normal social relationships with peers

I Reserved in group activities

I Poor academic progress in reading and

maths

I Difficulties in following instructions

I Problems with learning activities that

require both storage and processing

I Place-keeping difficulties

I Appears to be inattentive, to have short

attention span, and to be distractible

B R I    A N

M

I    T   C H E L L  /    P H  O T   O F  U  S I     O N

Do children face difficulties because they are unable to meet the memory demands of

many structured learning activities?

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Behaviour Rating Inventory of ExecutiveFunction (Gioia et al., 2000).

The remaining methods assess workingmemory skills more directly. Manystandardised ability test batteries includetwo measures of working memory: forwardand backward digit span. Of the two,backward digit span provides the moresensitive assessment of general workingmemory capacity. This is due to itsrequirement not only to store the digitsbut also to mentally reverse their sequence,which imposes substantial burden on theattentional component of working

memory. A child scoring at low levels(say, more than 1 SD below the mean) onbackward digit recall has a high likelihoodof having poor working memory. Of thegeneral ability test batteries, the most

comprehensive assessment is provided bythe Working Memory Index (WMI) of the Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children(4th edn, Wechsler, 2004), based on threesubtest scores – forward and backwarddigit recall, and letter–number sequencing.In our experience, almost all children withpoor working memory will obtain low WMI scores (Alloway et al., 2008).

One limitation of the working memorymeasures from general ability test batteriesis that they are almost exclusively verbal innature and typically use digits as memoryitems. The problem with such assessments

is that individuals who have particularproblems in processing numericalinformation are likely to underperformon such assessments for reasons other thanpoor working memory capacity. These tests

also fail to incorporate other aspects of thechild’s working memory, such as the abilityto store and manipulate non-verbal

material.To provide a broader evaluation of

a child’s profile of working memorystrengths and weaknesses, specialisedworking memory test batteries such as the Working Memory Test Battery for Children(Pickering & Gathercole, 2001) and theAutomated Working Memory Assessment(AWMA: Alloway, 2007) can be used. Bothinclude verbal memory tests involvingdigit and non-digit stimuli, and alsoincorporate tests of non-verbal memoryusing stimuli such as spatial patterns andmovement sequences. The AWMA is is acomputerised assessment with automatedscoring that is appropriate for use byteachers as well as psychologists, andalso incorporates visuo-spatial complexmemory tests. This breadth of assessmentproduces a working memory profile for thechild that can, for example, distinguishbetween core working memory deficitsthat generalise across all domains (whichis most typical for children with poorworking memory) and less balancedpatterns of deficit that are more severefor either verbal material (Archibald &Gathercole, 2006) or visuo-spatial material(Archibald & Alloway, in press). Knowing

the profile of working memory strengthsand weaknesses is particularly useful inidentifying effective learning support forindividual children. Finally, it should benoted that these working memoryassessments provide valuable prospectiveindicators at school entry of children atrisk of poor academic progress over thecoming school years (Gathercole et al,2003).

Providing learning supportThe next step after establishing that achild has poor working memory is to find

ways of overcoming the slow learningprogress that accompanies this condition.There have been important recentadvances in such support and, althoughtheir efficacy and practical impact onclassroom learning has still to be fullyevaluated, they appear to offerconsiderable promise either singly or incombination.

Classroom-based support With Professor Julian Elliott and Dr TracyAlloway of the University of Durham,I have been involved in developing aclassroom-based approach to supporting

children with poor working memoryproblems. This approach is designedto avoid working memory overload instructured learning activities, and is

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S.W. et al. (2004). The generality ofworking-memory capacity: A latent-variable Approach to verbal andvisuo-spatial memory span andreasoning. Journal of Experimental

Psychology: General, 133, 189–217.Klingberg, T., Fernell, E., Olsesen, P.J. et

al. (2005). Computerized training ofworking memory in children withADHD – A randomized, controlledtrial. Journal of the American Academy 

of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 44,177–186.

Pickering, S.J. & Gathercole, S.E. (2001).The Working Memory Test Battery for 

Children. London: Harcourt.Wechsler, D. (2004). Wechsler Scale of 

Intelligence for Children (4th edn).

London: Harcourt.

Principles of the classroom-basedworking memory approachPrinciples Further information

Recognise working memory failures Warning signs include incomplete recall, failure tofollow instructions, place-keeping errors, and taskabandonment

Monitor the child Look out for warning signs, and ask the child

Evaluate working memory loads Heavy loads caused by lengthy sequences,unfamiliar and meaningless content, and demandingmental processing activities

Reduce working memory loads Reduce the amount of material to be remembered,increase the meaningfulness and familiarity of the

material, simplify mental processing, and restructurecomplex tasks

Repeat important information Repetition can be supplied by teachers or fellowpupils nominated as memory guides

Encourage use of memory aids These include wall charts and posters, usefulspellings, personalised dictionaries, cubes, counters,abacuses, Unifix blocks, number lines, multiplicationgrids, calculators, memory cards, audio recorders,and computer software

Develop the child’s own strategies These include asking for help, rehearsal, note-taking,use of long-term memory, and place-keeping andorganisational strategies

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presidents’ award

organised around the set of principlesderived both from cognitive theoryand from classroom practice that are

summarised in the box opposite.Following training and support, teacherslearn how to recognise task failures dueto working memory overload,monitor the child for thesefailures, evaluate workingmemory loads and reduceas necessary when memoryfailures arise, re-presentinformation to the child if necessary, encourage the use of memory aids, and develop the child’sstrategies to support memory. Workingexamples and case studies in our bookWorking Memory and Learning: A PracticalGuide for Teachers (Gathercole & Alloway,2008) illustrate the ways in which thiscan be achieved. A particular strength of this approach is that it is integrated withthe current delivery of the curriculum,and has been effectively applied forgroups of children with poor workingmemory as well as individuals.

Working memory trainingAn alternative approach that also looks

very promising involves the directtraining of working memory skills.Robomemo, produced by CogMed,

Stockholm (www.cogmed.com), isa computerised training programmedesigned to enhance working memory

through intensivepractice inactivities that taxworking memory.Key features of thisprogramme are that

the child works attheir maximum working

memory capacity on a near-daily basis forabout 35 minutes a day for six weeks, ina high-quality graphics environment withmultiple motivational features. Workingmemory performance has been found tobe substantially enhanced by Robomemoboth in children with ADHD (Holmes,Gathercole, Place et al., 2008; Klingberget al., 2005) and in children withpoor working memory (Holmes,Gathercole, Dunning et al., 2008).Inattentive behaviours are alsoreduced by the training. As yet, theprecise source of the improvementin working memory performance intraining is not fully understood, and

may arise from enhancement in basicmemory capacity, strategies, or both.

Summary  Working memory problems are relativelycommon during childhood, and aretypically associated with poor academiclearning. This article has describeda number of important recent advancesin understanding the problems facedby these children and in identifyingways of supporting them in education.It demonstrates the exciting opportunitiesthat cognitive approaches to learning canbring, if researchers are willing to broadentheir methods and interests to meet thoseof the non-scientific community.Cognitive theory is important not only forthe experimental laboratory but also forpractical application in vital contexts suchas the classroom.

“Memory loss maymasquerade as failuresof attention”

I Susan E. Gathercole

is Professor of Psychology atthe University of Yorks.gathercole@psych.york.ac.uk