The Impact of Working Memory Training on Children’s Cognitive and Noncognitive Skills

Abstract

Working memory capacity is thought to play an important role for a wide range of cognitive and noncognitive skills such as fluid intelligence, math, reading, the inhibition of pre-potent impulses or more general self-regulation abilities. Because these abilities substantially affect individuals' life trajectories in terms of health, education, and earnings, the question of whether working memory (WM) training can improve them is of considerable importance. However, whether WM training leads to improvements in these far-transfer skills is contested. Here, we examine the causal impact of WM training embedded in regular school teaching by a randomized educational intervention involving a sample of 6-7 years old first graders. We find substantial immediate and lasting gains in working memory capacity. In addition, we document relatively large positive effects on geometry skills, reading skills, Raven's fluid IQ measure, the ability to inhibit pre-potent impulses and self-regulation abilities. Moreover, these far-transfer effects emerge over time and only become fully visible after 12-13 months. Finally, we document that 3-4 years after the intervention, the children who received training have a roughly 16 percentage points higher probability of entering the academic track in secondary school.

Intra-individual variability in task performance after cognitive training is associated with long-term outcomes in children

“…Moreover, it provides additional insights into the mechanisms underlying these benefits. Together with the recent findings of Berger et al 10 , it also highlights the importance of including long-term follow-ups in any evaluation of training efficacy. In addition to long-term follow-up data, we demonstrate the utility of using response time variability metrics as an immediate indicator of intervention success.…”

“…Effective means of enhancing cognitive abilities have been a long-standing goal in many disciplines. Our current work adds to the existing evidence that adaptive working memory training can significantly benefit school-aged children 6,10,87,88 . Moreover, it provides additional insights into the mechanisms underlying these benefits.…”

“…Moreover, changes in variability (i.e. post minus pre-training) may be even better predictors of the emergence of future benefits than post training measures alone 10,86 .…”

“…In order to investigate whether intra-individual variability measures could be indicative of future outcomes at the subsequent follow-up assessments across all intervention groups, we conducted Bayesian linear regression analyses. We focused on the academic skills of arithmetic, geometry, and reading abilities, following Berger et al 10 . We also analysed the total score from the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) 55 , a general mental health screening tool for indexing the level of behavioural and psychological adjustment in healthy and clinical populations.…”

“…We also examined tests of academic performance in reading and two mathematics subscales (geometry and arithmetic) conducted 1 year after training. We focused on these specific academic skills because of the results from the independent sample in Berger et al 10 , which show that working memory training improved geometry and reading scores, but not arithmetic.…”