EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS

Working Memory

Working memory involves the ability to remember something and to perform an activity using this memory.  This skill maintains information in mind so that an individual can use it for learning, reasoning, or producing a result.  Working memory may invoke visual or verbal processes.  For example, this might involve shutting off a television while remembering to gather one's coat, keys, and bag before leaving the house on a trip.  In school, working memory is very important in taking notes, following multi-step directions, and doing mathematical calculations in one's head.  Working memory involves storing information temporarily and using that information in problem solving, motor activities, and self-control.

Working memory plays an important role in reading comprehension and, for younger children, in the development of decoding skills to create reading fluency.  It is a measure of the capacity of individuals to hold information in mind with the purpose of completing a task and helps them to remember the rules within a game or task.  Individuals often use rehearsal strategies such as repeating things in order to buffet their working memory strategy skills. 

Skillful application of working memory is seen in children who:

• Remember and follow complicated directions.
• Have the ability to use previous experiences of learning in new situations.
• Keep their engagement on tasks even while shifting activities within these tasks.
• Reorganize their thoughts or materials in a fashion that is helpful for further learning.
• Are able to control their attention to tasks.

Unskilled  use of working memory is seen in children who:

• Remember only the first or last things in a series of directions that is given to them.
• Have difficulty with jobs that have more than one step.
• Forget what they are doing in the middle of things.
• Have trouble remembering things even for a few minutes, such as directions and phone numbers.
• Describe themselves as being absent minded and often need help from adults to remember directions.
• Have difficulty retelling a story in their own words.
• Are confused while attempting to complete multi-step mathematical problems.

Working Memory Games

Games and technologies can be very useful in developing working memory skills. Children frequently need to recall successful activities utilized earlier in video games and then reapply them in a new situation or at a different level. They may attempt to apply strategies that they have learned in operating one type of technology such as a cell phone, with a new technology, such as a video I-pod. Within games, there are many requirements to keep current information “in mind” while making a game move.

Game play helps children develop better working memory when they practice skills such as:

• Maintaining information in their minds from previous game experience to guide in making a decision in the present.
• Self-instructional/rehearsal strategies in which a child talks to him/herself in order to guide him/herself through new steps and actions in the game.
• Completing multi-step actions while keeping in mind sequences and goals.

Parent Tips:

Ask you child how he/she is using strategies from older games to guide him/her with his/her new game. 

Help children select games from a series that they may have played previously. This will require that children access long-term memory of what they did in the old games to help them with the new.

Select games that require completion of mini-goals in order to get to an ultimate goal.

• Big Brain Academy (Memory mini-games)
• Dora’s River Rafting Race
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
• Trauma Center: Second Opinion
• Traveling Salesman
• Guitar Hero