Improving Working Memory

[1shortmomto4]

Something in the last post about Math triggered a rabbit trail for me - how to improve short term memory.  Is there a program? Activities? Games?  I've tried searching but not seeing specific suggestions.

[PeterPan]

Guess we need people to do the thread all over again! With the board changeover, posts are gone. Google site searches aren't pulling up nearly as much. The wealth of the ancients is GONE. 

I'm not super technical here and don't have a source. You can probably google and find one. Basically, working memory has lots of ways and needs to be functional and strong to be used. So you want to look at it as something that could be used with vision, with auditory, with kinesthetic/motor planning, etc. You want it to be STRONG, meaning it needs to be sufficient AND able to function in the presence of distractors like background noise or when other skills are being uses (attention shifting, etc.). Psychs will test this by doing n-backs. Some materials, like the most excellent workbook from Addie Cusimano (deceased and her book is going oop) can be used both for regular working memory work AND doing n-backs and other types of manipulations. If you google LearningRX or PACE, they have variants they do for working memory. Start simple, but build up like that to make it strong and functional.

vision--Simon (blinking light patterns), Memory (pictures you flip over to match), etc.

auditory--digit spans, anything by Cusimano that you can get I'm using this with my ds and like it a LOT Auditory Memory in Context Instructional Workbook:For the Development of Attention, Listening, Processing and Recall of Sentences and Paragraphs Her other book of digit spans is amazing if you can get it.

kinesthetic--give a sequence of commands which he repeats (the auditory working memory) and then completes (kinesthetic). It can be silly and fun.

Don't underestimate the value of games for working memory. There are therapeutic games (A Fist Full of Coins), but also just common games like Ticket to Ride, where they're going to hold a plan in their head and score with mental math, are awesome for building working memory. I play cooperative games with my ds like Mystery Board Game The Secret Door by Family Pastimes - Award Winning  and Family Pastimes Round-Up - A Co-operative Game which have them remembering what was under pieces. Ravensburger Enchanted Forest would be similar. Those last three are a bit young for a teen or high schooler but Ticket to Ride would not be. There's also an app. For my dd, who has both low processing speed and low working memory, a game like Ticket to Ride can be uncomfortably hard. Even with paper to make her notes, it's still hard enough that she didn't necessarily want to play. It's a way to tell when a game is useful and hitting a hard area. It also means you want to bring in supports. You want the task to be within reach. It doesn't have to be HARD to be useful. Just stretch the skill a bit, and as it gets easier then make it just a fuzz harder. Keep it within reach and pleasant if possible.

As their skills build, you want to begin adding in distractors. You might even do it early, as soon as a level of skill is attended. So maybe you're doing your kinesthetic military drills time, and you just HAPPEN to have some music on or just HAPPEN to have the news going in the other room, kwim? Turn on the radio, have the kids running around, make them juggle distractions. You don't want him only able to use his skill in a quiet room. He needs to be functional. He may need to do it in an office or in a dorm room. He needs to be able to use his working memory when there are significant distractions going.

Another thing I did that costs basically nothing but is super super smart and powerful, is I pulled in metronome work. You can turn on a metronome app to 54 bpm, build up basic skills using Heathermomster's instructions (it targets EF, you WANT to do this, wow do you want to do this), and then as he gets more competent begin adding in working memory work. So at that point, think about it, you have him motor planning the movements, using his executive function, AND using working memory AND using language. That was the whole convergence of everything that was hard for my dd! To write a paper, what do you need? You need to be able to organize your thoughts (EF), hold them in your head (working memory), convert it all into words (language). and type them (motor planning). So one activity, but you're getting to merge all the skills you need to be functional to write a paper. Sure there's more. Sure we'd like word retrieval, mapping software, blah blah. But for my dd, this bodywork, getting those things to all be able to work at the same time WITH distractions going, bumped her ability to get out a paper. She went from Jesus in Gethsemane (sweating drops of blood) to more like that was hard but doable. And it's totally free to do.