Working Memory and Children’s Mathematical Skills: Implications for mathematical development and mathematics curricula

Short-Term Memory, Working Memory, and Executive Functioning in Preschoolers: Longitudinal Predictors of Mathematical Achievement at Age 7 Years

“…Findings from the current growth curve analyses also highlight that better verbal short-term memory span in preschool results in a maintained advantage in math and reading scores throughout early schooling. Holmes and Adams (2006) also found that verbal short-term memory span was related to mental arithmetic (although not other skills such as number and algebra, shape, space and measures, and data handling) in 8-10 year olds, although this was accounted for by age-related variance. They argued that verbal short-term memory may be used on simple auditorily presented arithmetic questions where children used subvocal rehearsal processes to support the retention of problem information and direct retrieval of arithmetic facts from long-term memory.…”

“…The importance of the visual-spatial sketch pad at this young age is in line with recent research suggesting that before the age of 7, and particularly before the onset of spontaneous verbal rehearsal, children rely heavily on visual-spatial representations to support the maintenance of information in short-term storage (McKenzie et al, 2003). Results from Holmes and Adams (2006) showed that visual-spatial short-term memory (as assessed by the Mazes task) uniquely predicted all aspects of mathematics achievement after controlling for the variance associated with age, phonological memory, and central executive functioning. However, this only applied to 8-year-old children, whereas for 10 year olds, visual-spatial short-term memory only predicted performance on more difficult math questions.…”

“…Based on this they argue that older children may revert to earlier developing visual-spatial strategies for arithmetic where symbolic-linguistic arithmetic or direct retrieval strategies cannot be applied. The role of the visual-spatial sketch pad in early development of mathematical skills may be to provide a foundation for representing abstract problems in a concrete form (Holmes & Adams, 2006), providing a workspace to support the links between children's in-formal concrete knowledge and the abstract language and symbolism necessary for children's mathematics in school. Continuation of our longitudinal study may reveal that as children become older and more practiced in mathematical knowledge and procedures, the pattern of significant predictors may change.…”

“…Recent research is placing more emphasis on the important role of the visual-spatial sketch pad in children's early arithmetical skills (McKenzie, Bull, & Gray, 2003;Holmes & Adams, 2006). Visual-spatial skills and visual-spatial working memory have been found to be related to children's early counting ability (Kyttala, Aunio, Lehto, van Luit, & Hautamaki, 2003), and to mathematics ability in children aged 10 years (Maybery & Do, 2003), 11 years, and 14 years (Jarvis & Gathercole, 2003).…”

Contribución de los Componentes de la Memoria de Trabajo a la Eficiencia en Aritmética Básica Durante la Edad Escola

“…De manera similar, Holmes y Adams (2006) encontraron que la agenda visuoespacial predice una varianza única de las habilidades de rendimiento matemático en los niños pequeños (7-8 años). Sin embargo, en niños mayores (9-10 años) este componente de la MT solo fue predictor del rendimiento en los problemas aritméticos de mayor complejidad, lo cual pudiera reflejar una dependencia o una regresión a las estrategias visuo-espaciales cuando la aritmética simbólico-lingüística (Houdé, 1997) o las estrategias directas de recuperación de información no pueden ser aplicadas (Holmes & Adams, 2006). Alrededor de los 9-10 años los niños comienzan ya a utilizar el bucle fonológico para la solución de problemas matemáticos sencillos, mostrando así, el dominio de la aritmética simbólico-lingüística o el uso de estrategias de solución más maduras (como la recuperación directa desde la memoria) que se basan en un código verbal (Berg, 2008;Dehaene & Cohen, 1995;Houdé, 1997).…”