It is time to take memory training seriously
Sue Buckley
It has been known for a long while that children with Down syndrome have specific impairments in verbal shortterm memory. Research now indicates that memory training activities may be effective.
Buckley SJ. It is time to take memory training seriously. Down Syndrome Research and Practice. 2008;12(2);105-106.
doi:10.3104/updates.2092
For more than 25 years we have known that children and adults with Down syndrome
have a specific impairments in working memory. Within the working memory system,
they have particular difficulty with the verbal short-term memory part of the system.
They have more difficulty remembering verbal information than visuo-spatial information
in short-term memory tests[1]. Given that
verbal short-term memory skills – the ability to hold spoken words in short-term
storage – is linked to spoken language development and to progress in reading and
maths in childhood, a number of researchers have been interested in exploring ways
to improve verbal short-term memory through training activities with mixed results.
However, memory training may be about to become more popular as recent work with
both children with Down syndrome and non-disabled children has shown positive effects.
Francis Conners and colleagues recently reported small but positive gains from a
parent supported training programme[2]. Twenty
children with Down syndrome aged 6-14 years took part in the study and 16 completed
the training schedules therefore the findings are reported for these 16 children.
Box 1 | Working memory
Working memory is the short-term memory system that we use to support every-day
activities such as listening to another person, recalling a shopping list, rehearsing
a telephone number, reading with comprehension and doing mental arithmetic.
Research over many years has identified that the working memory system is a system
of 3 interlinked components that are actually located in different areas of the
brain – a central executive, verbal short-term memory store and visuo-spatial short-term
memory store.
The central executive is the general component which controls attention and is involved
in both co-ordinating storage of short-term information in the verbal and visuo-spatial
stores and in processing mental information.
The verbal short-term memory store holds verbal information – words and sentences
and numbers – for brief periods of time and is located in the left hemisphere of
the brain. This component is sometimes referred to as the phonological loop as it
typically holds information in a speech based form.
Visuo-spatial short-term memory store holds images, pictures and information about
locations for brief periods of time and is located in the right hemisphere of the
brain.
The capacity of each of these three components increases with age during childhood.
The capacity of each component can be measured.
Children with Down syndrome usually have better visuo-spatial than verbal short-term
memory abilities.
The working memory system is important for spoken language learning and for reading
and maths in the classroom as well as in attending to instructions and processing
information throughout daily activities.
Useful references
- Gathercole SE, Alloway TA. Working memory and learning – A practical guide for
teachers. Sage Publications; 2008.
- Pickering SJ, editor. Working memory and Education. Academic Press; 2006.
Alloway TP, Gathercole SE, editors. Working memory and neurodevelopmental disorders.
Psychology Press; 2006.
- Buckley S, Bird G. Memory development in individuals with Down syndrome.
Down Syndrome Education International: 2001. [Open
Access Full Text
]
Parents were trained to carry out the intervention programmes with their children.
Parents were given training at the start of the study and supported by weekly telephone
calls during the training periods. The verbal memory training was delivered entirely
in an auditory/verbal mode – the children had to listen to digits spoken and then
to say them, with the number of digits in the lists to be recalled increasing as
children succeeded at a list length (e.g. 2 digits, then 3 digits, then 4 and 5
for some children). There were no visual materials used to support their learning
as in some previous training studies[3,4].
This was an ambitious project as the tasks were really quite challenging but the
aim was to really focus on trying to improve listening memory directly.
In order to be sure that any gain on the verbal training programme was specific
to the training, an alternative intervention using visual activities was used for
comparison. The children were put into 2 groups and one group began with verbal
memory training, the other with visual activities. The training sessions for each
intervention took place for 10 minutes, 5 times each week for 3 months. Progress
was audio-taped and tapes plus score sheets mailed to the research team weekly.
After 3 months, the groups changed to the other activity and after another 3 months
went back to the first activity programme for a further 3 months.
Firstly, the results show that parents were able to implement the memory training
at home and record progress. This is an important finding as the verbal memory training
task was not easy for the children and they had to do it 5 times each week. The
parents were supported on an ongoing basis but the study does demonstrate that parents
can be actively involved in intervention research in this way. Secondly, the memory
training did lead to a small but significant increase in digit span for the group
– with some children making substantial progress and others less. There was also
evidence that the use of phonological (speech based codes) in memory increased as
a result of training and this could have important effects for improving the children's
ability to learn the sound patterns of new words.
Working memory delays are also seen in children within the non-disabled population
in regular classrooms, and Sue Gathercole and colleagues have carried out a number
of studies with these children in recent years (see ref 5).
They have also been investigating the effectiveness of memory training and report
positive results of using computer training programmes with children with ADHD and
with children with poor working memory (see ref 5).
This team have used Robomemo, produced by CogMed[6],
and children work on this daily. The author and colleagues have had positive results
in a small pilot study using the Mastering Memory software[7,8]
with children with Down syndrome of primary school age.
Clearly there is a need for further research into memory training which evaluates
different approaches to training and also follows up post-intervention to see if
benefits of training last. In our previous work, we found an interaction between
classroom settings, reading progress over time and lasting gains from memory training
games. Specifically, the children in mainstream classrooms who were in daily reading
instruction gained from memory training and continued to improve their short-term
memory skills over time, while those in special education classrooms showed equally
good gains at the end of the memory training period but these gains disappeared
over the next 18 months[9].
Further research into both home based and classroom based memory training could
lead to gains in memory, speech and language and literacy for children with Down
syndrome. The fact that progress in these areas is inter-related requires more training
studies to take account of all these skills at the outset and following training
studies should also take account of the educational settings and educational experiences
of children taking part in training.
Sue Buckley is at Down Syndrome Education International,
Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK. e-mail:sue.buckley@downsed.org
Published online: 30 September 2008
References
- Jarrold C, Baddeley AD. Short-term memory in Down
syndrome: Applying the working memory model. Down Syndrome Research and Practice.
2001:7:17-21. [Open Access Full
Text
]
- Conners FA, Rosenquist CJ, Arnett L, Moore MS, Hume LE.
Improving memory span in children with Down syndrome. Journal of Intellectual Disability
Research. 2008; 52(3):244-255.
- Broadley I, MacDonald M. Teaching short-term memory skills
to children with Down's syndrome. Down Syndrome Research and Practice.
1994;1:56-62. [Open Access Full Text
]
- Comblain A. Working memory in Down's syndrome: training
the rehearsal strategy. Down Syndrome Research and Practice. 1994;2:123-126.
[Open Access Full Text
]
- Gathercole SE. Working memory in the classroom.
The Psychologist. 2008;21(5):382-385. (http://www.thepsychologist.org.uk/archive/)
and see http://www.york.ac.uk/res/wml
- www.cogmed.com
- http://www.masteringmemory.co.uk/
- see page 16 in Buckley S, Bird G. Memory development
in individuals with Down syndrome. Down Syndrome Education International; 2001.
[Open Access Full
Text
]
- Laws G, Buckley SJ, Bird G, MacDonald J, Broadley I. (1995)
The influence of reading instruction on language and memory development in children
with Down syndrome. Down Syndrome Research and Practice. 1995;3(2):59-64.
[Open Access Full Text
]