A novel working memory task for preschoolers: sensitivity to age differences from 3-5 years

Abstract

Working memory (WM) plays an important role in children's learning and is linked to later academic and occupational success. Understanding the early development of WM can provide critical clues regarding the underlying structure of executive functions and how they change over the life span. The main objectives of the present study were to (1) investigate age differences in the development of three components of WM (retrieval, substitution, transformation) on a novel preschool WM measure and (2) explore whether findings are consistent with the hierarchical model of WM development by examining perseverative and non-perseverative WM errors. Perseverative errors were hypothesized to be more strongly associated with problems substituting and transforming a representation held in mind, whereas non-perseverative errors were hypothesized to be associated with problems maintaining a representation in mind. Participants were 64 children ranging in age from 3.0 to 5.6 years. The results provide evidence for the sensitivity of the WM task to age differences from 3 to 5 years and support for the hierarchical model of WM development.

Does the BRIEF-P Predict Specific Executive Function Components in Preschoolers?

“…Another issue may be the sensitivity of the PEFB Working Memory task to EF variability in older preschoolers. In a recent study, this task was somewhat less sensitive to age differences compared with other PEFB tasks for older preschoolers ; this task has been revised to improve its sensitivity (Boudreau & Garon, 2014).…”

Early executive dysfunction in ASD: Simple versus complex skills

“…A fourth limitation was our working memory measure, which showed ceiling effects for the children who had higher MA's. In a recent study, we increased the sensitivity of our working memory measure for older preschoolers by adding to the number of doors and items hidden [Boudreau, Dempsey, Smith, & Garon, 2017]. Finally, the current study included only one clinical group.…”

Thinking inside the box: Mental manipulation of working memory contents in 3- to 7-year-old children

“…In the test, the pictures are covered and children are presented verbally with a sequence of items whose pictures they need to press in order (again, sequences differ in length between trials). However, the Noisy Book Task might be better described as a simple forward span task, in which the updating demand does not stem from the design of the trial itself but results from the need to erase memory traces from the previous trial when starting a new sequence (for a similar critique, see below our comment on the updating trials of the task by Boudreau et al, 2018 ). From school age onward, updating is usually assessed by Letter/Digit Memory tasks, Keep track or n-back tasks ( Kirchner, 1958 ; Miyake et al, 2000 ; St Clair-Thompson & Gathercole, 2006 ; van der Sluis et al, 2007 ).…”

“…Regarding the manipulation of WM content, there is a relative shortage of tasks suitable for pre-schoolers ( Boudreau, Dempsey, Smith, & Garon, 2018 ; Garon et al, 2008 ). Studies have attempted to investigate WM manipulation in children as young as 3 years of age using backward word and digit span tests or the backward Corsi span task ( Garon et al, 2008 ).…”

“…Recently, Boudreau et al (2018) presented a task with minimal verbal demands to measure retrieval, updating, and manipulation within a single task for pre-schoolers. One advantage of using a single task is that it is possible to establish the validity of the empirical approach, by establishing good baseline performance on the most basic task requirements.…”