“He continually asks me to repeat the instructions.”
“I swear, my teenager doesn’t remember what I tell him three minutes later.”
“My loved one gets easily frustrated and then uses challenging behavior when they forget instructions.”
“This student expects that I’m always around to help if they can’t remember what to do.”
Any of these scenarios sound familiar? Difficulties with remembering information, following instructions, and frustration when we can’t get it right indicate your child, teen, adult learner, or student might have challenges with working memory.
The Basics of Working Memory
Just like a computer, our brains have a limited capacity to store and retain information. Working memory describes our ability to remember information and recall it later when we need it.
Working memory is commonly associated with academics like reading and math. In part because both of those skills require us to recall information like letter sounds, sight words, and simple math facts like addition and subtraction. Working memory can also involve our ability to follow multiple-step instructions since we need to remember all parts of the task while we complete the steps in order.
For a clear look at how these abilities typically develop from early childhood through adulthood, explore our Executive Functioning Skills by Age Guide.
Working Memory and Other Executive Functioning Skills
Not only is working memory closely associated with academic success, but it’s also connected to other executive functioning skills. While we may think of it as short term recall of information, working memory also requires us to apply it when we need it.
It’s not just information retention; it’s about the application as well.
That’s why boosting working memory can impact other executive functioning skills as well. Research demonstrates:
- Good working memory helps us with concept formation or connecting existing ideas with new information.
- Improvements in working memory can promote increases in attentional control. We know that individuals who test well in working memory can more easily stay on task.
- Working memory can promote better impulse control and flexibility. When we have the right information at hand, we’re less likely to make knee-jerk responses. We’re also more likely to demonstrate flexible thinking, shifting our attention and applying different rules in different settings.
Examples of Working Memory Skills
Researchers are still unclear about the best way to improve working memory. After all, we almost always get better at tasks the more practice we have in completing them. However, boosting working memory can improve the overall academic and social success of learners with unique needs like Autism and Attention Disorders. Consider some of these examples of tasks requiring working memory:
- Recalling numbers, letters, and words, beginning with two digits and increasing to longer strings.
- Delivering a message to another person (e.g., “Go tell your brother it’s time for dinner.”)
- Completing simple errands (e.g., “Go to the refrigerator and get the milk.”)
- Playing simple memory and matching games.
- Completing math facts and sight word worksheets.
- Completes two, three, and four-step tasks without needing additional instructions.
- Gathers information from one source and applies it to another setting.
- Keeps track of personal belongings, remembering and recalling where things are placed around the home and classroom.
- Uses tools like visual schedules, written reminders, and picture instructions to help recall information and complete tasks.
- Attempts to problem-solve first if they cannot recall the instruction before asking for help.
- Demonstrates self-control of challenging behaviors if they require more help.
How working memory impacts challenging behavior
Given what we’ve described above, it becomes apparent how working memory can set the stage for challenging behavior. Parents, caregivers, educators, mentors, and supervisors may identify the child as ‘lazy,’ ‘a selective listener’ or ‘prompt dependent’ when in reality the individual’s struggling to recall and use information.
In reality, when an individual struggles with working memory, challenging behaviors may happen because they have forgotten the instructions or can’t recall the information to complete the task. What may seem like escaping or refusal to complete the job might be a challenge with remembering the right information. By boosting working memory, we can reduce the need to use challenging behavior to escape or avoid a task when someone doesn’t remember what to do.
3 Ways to Evaluate Working Memory
One of the best things about working memory among all the executive functioning skills is that it’s relatively easy to assess and evaluate. Based on what you’ve read above, you may decide you or your learner could benefit from a boost in working memory. Depending on the learner, you may evaluate that one of these options will work well as a starting point to greater independence:
- Conduct a skills assessment. There are many different tools, checklists, and workbooks (get 20% off our executive functioning workbook with coupon code LSA20) available to evaluate and create goals around executive functioning skills like working memory. Many of these assessments and evaluation tools can also be valuable in helping brainstorm and write plans to target down the road.
- Coordinate with your learner’s existing care team. Given that executive functioning skills like working memory also impact many academic skill areas, other people in your learner’s care team may be noticing the same things. Learners who also receive speech, OT, PT, or IEP services may already have goals related to working memory. By reaching out to your learner’s care team, you can align your strategies together (and avoid repeating any methods that were already tried and not useful).
- Contact a professional or life skills coach. Not every parent or teacher comes equipped to assess and evaluate working memory. And if you conduct an evaluation, you may not know the best course of action moving forward. Reach out to a trained professional with experience in helping learners develop and enhance executive functioning skills like working memory to help you start SMART goal planning.
Further Reading
- Life Skills Advocate Blog – 5 Easy Ways To Boost Your Teen’s Working Memory
- Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University (2011). Building the Brain’s “Air Traffic Control” System: How Early Experiences Shape the Development of Executive Function: Working Paper No. 11. Retrieved from www.developingchild.harvard.edu.
- Cowan N. (2014). Working Memory Underpins Cognitive Development, Learning, and Education. Educational psychology review, 26(2), 197–223.
- Life Skills Advocate Blog – How Teaching Executive Functioning Skills Can Reduce Challenging Behaviors
- Najdowski, A. C. (2017). Flexible and focused: teaching executive function skills to individuals with autism and attention disorders. Academic Press.
- Science Direct – All About Working Memory