The Development of Working Memory in Normally Achieving and Subtypes of Learning Disabled Children

Abstract

Working memory has been proposed as an important component of reading and arithmetic skills. The development of working memory was studied in normally achieving and subtypes of learning disabled children. The performance of reading disabled (RD), arithmetic disabled (ARITHD), and attentional deficit disordered (ADD) children, age 7-13, was compared to normal achievers (NA) on 2 working memory tasks, 1 involving sentences and the other involving counting. There was a significant growth of working memory as a function of age. In addition, the RD children had significantly lower scores on both tasks. The ARITHD children had significantly lower scores only on the Working Memory--Counting task, and the ADD group had scores similar to the normally achieving children except at the youngest age level in the Working Memory--Sentences task. Thus, a reading disability appears to involve a generalized deficit in working memory. Children with an arithmetic disability do not have a generalized language deficit but have a specific working memory deficit in relation to processing numerical information. As children with ADD did not have deficits in these tasks, working memory may not have significant attentional components. An important component of the development of reading and computational arithmetic skills appears to be the growth of working memory for language and numerical information.

A comparison of working memory skills and learning in children with developmental coordination disorder and moderate learning difficulties

“…de Jong, 1998;Swanson, 1994), mathematics (e.g. Bull & Scerif, 2001;Mayringer & Wimmer, 2000;Siegel & Ryan, 1989) and language comprehension (e.g. Nation, Adams, Bowyer-Crane, & Snowling, 1999;Seigneuric, Ehrlich, Oakhill, & Yuill, 2000), as well as attainments in National Curriculum assessments of English and mathematics (Gathercole & Pickering, 2000;Gathercole, Pickering, Knight, & Stegmann, 2004b;Jarvis & Gathercole, in press, 2003).…”

Some factors underlying mathematical performance: The role of visuospatial working memory and non-verbal intelligence

“…Several studies have found evidence showing the involvement of WM in mathematical performance (e.g., Hitch, 1978;Holmes & Adams, 2006;Logie & Baddeley, 1987;Siegel & Ryan, 1989;Swanson, 1993; for a review, see Ashcraft, 1996). Phonological WM, which is assumed to temporarily store and rehearse linguistic information, is observed to be involved at least in counting (Healy & Nairne, 1985;Logie & Baddeley, 1987) and in multiplication (Lee & Kang, 2002), and to some extent, phonological WM has been observed to explain arithmetical reasoning ability (Henry & MacLean, 2003).…”

Working Memory and Strategy Instruction in Children with Learning Disabilities

“…Children with LD are defi ned as those individuals whose performance is in the normal range on standardized intelligence tests, but perform below the 25th percentile on standardized achievement measures of word recognition and/or arithmetic (see Geary, 2013 ;Siegel & Ryan, 1989 , for rationale). These reading and/or arithmetic defi cits are not due to inadequate opportunities to learn, general intelligence, physical or emotional disorders, but to basic disorders in specifi c psychological processes that are a refl ection of neurological, constitutional, and/or biological factors.…”