CHAPTER 7

The Long-Term Benefits of Short-Term Memory

If any one of us were asked to describe ourselves, we would probably first think of our personality traits, or perhaps our likes and dislikes. Most of us intuitively sense that being shy, impatient, cheerful, or moody, among many other possibilities, are personal attributes that define our individuality. In contrast, relatively few of us might consider how something as seemingly ordinary as memory is an equally important part of our identity. We’re probably inclined to think of memory more narrowly, as a utilitarian skill or an ability, useful for storing multiplication tables or finding our way around town. Yet surprisingly, memory shapes how we are perceived by others, what we do for fun, and which pivotal life choices we make with respect to education and career.

In this chapter, we’ll discuss how working memory contributes to a child’s thinking and behavior, and his unfolding identity. For example, how has Barnaby’s excellent recall for animal species focused his contributions in class? Will Madison’s difficulty remembering names impact who gets invited to her next birthday party? And what impact will this have on her longer-term social relationships? If Alex could remember the principles taught by his sensei, might he get his black belt quicker? Could this help his confidence in school, and willingness to learn new things? Should Alex’s memory challenge be thought of as a matter of “effort,” or should his challenges be dealt with more externally? What strategies could help Alex take important steps toward self-reliance?

We’ll explore such questions and their answers, but first we must consider how memory mobilizes a person’s awareness. It gives us the ability to communicate, imagine, innovate, and form social bonds, and helps to make us historians of our own lives. Our recall of important experiences helps us relate the past to the present, and our intentions to the actions that follow. In this way, memory provides our lives with an invaluable sense of coherence and logic. Long-term memory provides the broad continuity for experiences that occur over the course of a lifetime. In comparison, short-term memory, or what is better described as working memory, provides more immediate coherence, literally from one moment to the next. The last time you forgot why you walked from the living room to the kitchen, you experienced a miniblackout in working memory, and for at least a few moments, you probably felt disoriented. This is because you briefly lost awareness of your purpose, the flow of your intentions. All of the pillars of Factor Ex rely on working memory to get their respective jobs done. Working memory activates executive thinking and can be thought of as the rocket fuel that propels productivity and a person’s ability to multitask.

Working memory is also the glue that binds the moments of our day together, helping us to experience our lives as logical and goal-directed. You might already be sensing how important working memory is to young minds. Childhood is a time of self-definition, each successive experience and interaction leading to new plateaus of insight and self-understanding. These insights help children to make sense of the past and imagine the future, capabilities that lead to better planning, purposeful action, and self-control. In this way, the cumulative contributions of working memory enable a person to better influence her destiny. This is one of the most visible ways in which relatively small differences between minds can have a very big impact on the course of people’s lives.

The Advantages of a “Chunky” Mind

Working memory makes it possible to remember specific details or small “chunks” of information for brief periods of time. A “chunk” of information is something like a digit, a person’s name, or a specific task on a “to do” list. Most research on working memory has concluded that a person can retain up to seven chunks (although two or three chunks may be more realistic for a very young child) for about fifteen to twenty seconds without rehearsal. However, working memory varies from person to person, and even highly intelligent people may have very limited working memory.

Working Memory Has Several Faces

An important study, led by Dr. Monica Luciana at the University of Minnesota, has shown that these working memory skills are not related to IQ, and instead reflect a child’s executive thinking skills. Luciana and colleagues have found that some aspects of working memory develop earlier than others. For example, the ability to remember the faces of multiple people (like being able to think of what your classmates look like when trying to imagine them at home) typically develops by age nine. Yet more complex spatial memories, such as being able to think of how the streets downtown are organized, may not develop until age fourteen, and for many kids, even later. To understand the great significance of working memory, we must go beyond IQ.

Of course, you can remember more than seven numbers, names, or tasks, but that is because that information has been more fully encoded by your brain—stored in long-term memory. Working memory pertains to how much new information you can retain at one time. For example, if you start a new job, how many names will you remember the first day? At least for me, seven names would be an optimistic expectation!

If you’ve spent much time using a computer (Is this even a valid question anymore?), you can think of working memory as similar to the way that software puts information on a clipboard during a “cut and paste” operation. That information is left on the clipboard (in essence making it available in working memory) until you close out of a particular program. It would be ideal if our minds could work with the same efficiency, allowing us to retain that information indefinitely until we no longer need it. Unfortunately, that’s not how our minds work. Like the clipboard, our working memory has limited capacity. If we don’t move that information into long-term memory—if it does not get “pasted”—in all likelihood we will forget it and have to relearn it whenever we might need it again. So just because a child can repeat your simple instructions immediately after you say them doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll know (remember) them tomorrow.

Your Computer Has Two Kinds of Memory . . . and So Does Your Brain

A computer’s hard drive is its long-term memory, while a computer’s RAM is its operating memory. A person’s working memory functions in a way similar to a computer’s operating memory, allowing multiple windows to be open simultaneously, or putting information on a clipboard until it is pasted (applied) elsewhere. Until information is pasted into a document (long-term memory), you haven’t fully learned it. Working memory also generates speed and the ability to rapidly link chunks of information together to form more complex ideas and solutions. In this way, working memory contributes to problem-solving as much as it does to immediate recall.

Suppose your thirteen-year-old is learning how to use wood-working tools; he watches as you demonstrate how to carve and chisel, but time runs out before he has a chance to try it for himself. There is a good chance that what he saw, and seemingly learned, was never “pasted,” and that as a result, he will have to be taught again. A complete learning cycle moves from the abstract or verbal to the practical and “hands-on.” For most adults, seeing a child’s enthusiasm “to try” is a familiar situation. Children seem to intuitively know they can’t complete some learning processes—encode all the necessary chunks—until they themselves can do what they’ve been taught. This is especially true for many kinesthetically oriented, “hands-on” learners.

Working Memory Differences Between Genders

Research has shown that there are some substantial working memory differences between genders, with females doing better on tasks of random short-term memory (like remembering various appointments) and males doing better remembering things that are of personal interest (like which aisles in the grocery store hold their favorite snacks). A team of researchers at McGill University has found that estrogen has a beneficial effect on working memory, partially helping to explain gender differences in short-term recall. I believe these findings also help to explain why reading skills tend to develop earlier in girls than boys, since learning to reads relies heavily on an enthusiastic working memory. In fact, estrogen has been found to be associated with more rapid learning of phonemes—the auditory building blocks of words.

So how do we respond to children who need to have extra support for working memory skills? Hopefully, you have or will notice a child’s working memory strengths early in her life, so that your interactions reinforce those strengths. For instance, if your preschool son is fascinated by dinosaurs, you can teach a variety of things in that context. “Let’s count the dinosaurs. Stegosaurus begins with S—can you find the S?” and so on. Few of us will raise children who have perfect working memory (although there are a few people with eidetic memory—the capacity to remember almost everything they see, read, or hear). However, in the way that you talk to a child, sequence information, and build smaller chunks into larger chunks, you reinforce that memory itself is an important component of learning.

Working Memory Is Our Data Bank

The demands of modern life have placed a high premium on remembering more and more chunks of information. You’ve probably observed this in your own life—just think about how much numerical information you’re asked to remember. Consider the required array of access codes and passwords for your home and office computer, voice mail, and Internet access; online bank, shopping, and investment accounts; ATM and credit card PINs; alarms and locks. Add on telephone numbers and all the miscellaneous organizational digits in life—everything from your license plate to social security number. (Of course, parents remember not only their own personal information, but various numbers and codes for their children, too.) Remembering numbers can be tricky because we only have 10 digits (0-9) to choose from. As a result, numbers need to be longer to be distinct—usually making it necessary to remember a sequence of numbers in relation to each other.

Recently, I saw a smart innovation for a combination lock— instead of using a sequence of numbers, the owner could arrange a series of letters to spell a word. Words are easier for most people to remember because they more easily lend themselves to personal or emotional associations. It is easier to move chunks of information into long-term memory when we can group that information with something we already know. For example, when learning a foreign language, it’s easier to learn a word that sounds similar to its English counterpart or reminds us of something. If English is your native language, my guess is that you’d sooner learn apfel means “apple” in German than manzana means “apple” in Spanish.

Like most aspects of culture, what impacts adults also affects children. While you may have had to remember only your address and telephone number, today’s children are so thoroughly enmeshed with technology that their minds often hold a vast array of codes, passwords, and other sequenced chunks of information. Although this trend strengthens children’s working memory by giving it a daily workout, it has also put an enormous strain on their “data banks.” Could this helpexplain the stress, irritability, and study fatigue we see so often as parents and teachers?

Numbers Are Abstract, Words Can Be Personal

Numbers are particularly challenging for the working memory of young minds because they lack the personal and emotional associations that words can have. Most children find numbers to be more abstract than words, and it doesn’t help that numbers have to contain multiple digits to be distinct, and potentially memorable.

The Cause and the Cure?

Of course, no one planned for working memory to be taxed so heavily. Still, the trend is not likely to reverse soon. To some extent, we have tried to adapt by developing equally complex technological devices to help “remember” information. The personal digital assistant (PDA) is the perfect example. Many new forms of technology are attempts to externalize the process of working memory by making it less of a human requirement than a technological one. No wonder we are subtly encouraged to think of our minds as computers. As parents, we can observe this tendency in the classroom, where students are often allowed to use calculators instead of doing basic mathematical operations with pencil and paper. The argument is, “Why waste time doing basic computations when calculators can move kids more rapidly into the advanced equations?” The primary concern, of course, is not that children put in the sweat equity to derive the right answer for a long division problem. The question that is raised by parents and teachers alike is whether young minds will have sufficient practice with and exposure to basic calculations to consolidate the underlying principles of long division before moving on to the next step. If children are merely punching numbers into a formula, will they really understand how answers are derived? A good counterpoint is whether access to technology allows young minds to spare working memory for higher-level learning? In some respects, the concern is qualitative—are we substituting depth of understanding for breadth of information?

Jack of All Trades, Master of None?

Is technology causing us to develop a more intelligent or more superficial generation? Children have a breadth of experiences impossible to imagine even a generation ago. However, breadth often comes at the expense of depth. There are no more hours in a day than there were when today’s parents were children. Yet there is so much more accessible information, and much of it seems interesting and relevant to our lives. The trouble is, even when we want to learn about something in greater depth, it’s often hard to find the time. The result—we tend to know a little bit about a lot of things. Could this be the ultimate destination of the so-called “information superhighway”?

Working Memory Helps Activate Social Minds

The benefits of working memory reach farther than academics to help children expand their social lives. In effect, working memory is a type of bridge, potentially helping to connect an individual to a larger community. Ten-year-old Drake wants to join a group of children playing “H-O-R-S-E” on the basketball court in the park. (This is a game in which players compete to sink baskets from the same court positions—if your competitor makes the shot but you don’t, you get a letter. The first one to get “H-O-R-S-E” loses.) Drake is confident in asserting himself because he can remember the other children’s names, knows the rules, and can keep track of what letter he and the other kid are on, and who will be playing next. He can follow the jokes and quips, “think on his feet,” and successfully negotiate the “social code” of the group because he knows how to fit in. Of course, like most kids, Drake doesn’t think of himself as multitasking in a socially relevant way. He is just having fun. But much of his social interest and positive self-regard stem from the social learning he has acquired by virtue of a strong working memory.

By comparison, six-year-old Julia’s subtle difficulties in working memory have had significant consequences. At her new school, children are required to follow a specific routine as they enter the classroom: check off their names on a sign-in sheet, put away their coats, put their homework folder in a cubby, and pick an assignment from the job jar. Julia has a very hard time remembering these steps. She often feels confused and overwhelmed by the controlled chaos when the doors open, with kids milling about, chatting loudly, and scrambling to put things away. She watches other children intensely, trying to stay on track during this brief period of transition and congestion. Yet her difficulty remembering all the steps makes it hard for her to plan strategically. Julia often finds herself in the way, annoying others by “going against traffic” or stopping and standing while she tries to recall what to do next. And her teacher sometimes becomes impatient with Julia’s dawdling, prompting, “Come on, Julia, let’s get class started.” For Julia, just getting through the door and to her seat is an exercise in anxiety and frustration.

Making matters worse, relatively subtle differences in working memory also have social repercussions. For instance, Julia isolates herself from classmates because she can’t remember other girls’ names, giving the unfortunate impression that she isn’t interested in her peers. Nothing could be farther from the truth, as her mother, in whom Julia confides, can surely attest. As Julia gets older and the demands on her working memory increase, she could potentially develop a poor self-image, regardless of having a strong intellect in other respects. A consistent effort on the part of her family and school can help Julia learn to manage her working memory liabilities.

To help Julia, her parents and teacher could:

• Recognize that inefficiency or awkwardness signals a processing problem rather than a lack of effort.

• Coach Julia on the steps before school, and have her repeat them. Repetition and recitation will help her more easily transfer information to long-term memory.

• Set up a “pretend” classroom at home and let Julia teach her stuffed animals how to get ready for school. Role-playing and teaching others (even a pet or a doll) help kids retain information.

• Assign a friendly classroom partner to Julia. It would be easier for Julia to focus on one child (to remember her name and to have a single person to “follow along with” during the morning routine) than trying to track an entire class of students.

• Provide ongoing verbal and visual prompts about what to do—many children with working memory delays benefit from signs or checklists. This way, they don’t have to remember every step; they just have to remember to check the sign.

• Provide plenty of positive reinforcement when Julia does remember what to do. Supportive affirmation helps lessen performance anxiety.

Even the Closest Relationships Are Affected

The more intimately we know someone, the more we count on them to know and anticipate our idiosyncrasies. Childhood friendships are the starting point for this type of social anticipation. For most children, friendship is built on a foundation of shared experiences and is strengthened by the sense of being known—a friend remembers how another friend reacts in certain circumstances, what that friend’s preferences are, and all the fun things they’ve done together. Children with good working memory naturally draw on this ability to relate to others. But for some children, working memory challenges are a significant hurdle to friendship, inadvertently leading to hurt feelings. Tanya can’t understand why Shelly never remembers whose turn it is to call on the telephone. Forrest wonders why Jacob gets so irritable, not realizing that he keeps hitting Jacob’s “sore points.” Monica is considered “stuck up” because she doesn’t laugh at a punch line, but by the time it gets delivered, she has usually forgotten the joke’s premise—what makes the joke funny.

Children with working memory problems can find social interactions challenging. Particularly in group situations, they may not be able to keep up with the pace of conversation or the rapid back-and-forth banter among peers. When meeting new groups of people, they may have extra difficulty remembering names or what was just said. Here are some things that can help children navigate social situations:

• Incorporate prompts and repetition in your introductions. “Tyler, this is Bob. Bob likes skiing, too. Bob, can you tell Tyler about your trip to Telluride?” Teach children to repeat names when being introduced.

• Help children find compatible friends. Children may find it easier to socialize one-on-one, with younger children, or with particularly “easygoing” peers. A good friend can help a child become part of a larger group.

• Keep a “cheat sheet” by the phone. Encourage your child to jot notes during a phone conversation or to list things he wants to mention.

• Encourage kids to keep a journal. This gives them practice writing down the day’s events. (Deirdre is able to check her new scout leader’s name, because she wrote it down at the last monthly meeting.)

• Teach children to focus on one or two prominent speakers within a group conversation. A group conversation tends to be dominated by primary speakers. It’s easier to track one person than everyone’s input and responses. As kids becomes more adept, have a child “switch” and focus on different kids at intervals. This technique can be taught at the family dinner table, or among close friends.

Memory Time Zones

Because working memory affects the speed at which a child can process information, people with different working memory capabilities can potentially feel as though they are in different “time zones.” Thinking in a different “time zone” is a key reason why children don’t thrive socially in school. Some kids just need longer to make sense of new information and to deposit that information in their learning bank, while other children may be skipping ahead, feeling frustrated with a peer who can’t keep pace. Kids who operate in an idiosyncratic time zone may unfortunately be excluded from activities, or be the last one chosen for sports and games.

HEY, WHAT TIME ZONE ARE YOU IN?

Coaching Time Zone Differences

When we coach kids who have time zone differences, it’s helpful to provide concrete examples, use a clock, and give as much guidance as possible about “blocks of time” for specific tasks. I’m not suggesting that you follow children around with a stop-watch and whistle, but helpful prompts such as “Do you think you could get your socks and shoes on before the minute hand reaches 6?” “This should take you about as long as it takes to brush your teeth,” or “When you can’t answer me right away, it helps me if you say, ‘Let me think a minute,’ so I know you heard my question,” can begin to foster basic time awareness. Even better is when we can coach these skills within the context of social interaction, helping kids to feel the difference in the flow of their behavior as it comes closer to matching that of their peers.

To help a child who has a different memory “time zone” . . .

• Teach kids to let others know he or she intends to respond (“Hmm, let me think,” or “That’s interesting”), request more information (“I’m sorry, what did you just say?”), or restate a query (“What do I want for dinner?”), rather than remain silent.

• With younger children, a “forgetful elephant” or “pokey hare” puppet can show how to overcome obstacles and make friends.

• Develop a code word or phrase that will remind a child he or she is “wandering”—the intent should be to heighten self-awareness, not self-consciousness. Anne tells her son Ryan that he reminds her of a brilliant, absentminded professor. When Ryan is “spacing out,” Anne asks, “What are you inventing, Professor?” It reminds him to reply to her, even if it’s only to say, “You’ll see soon.”

• A dry erase board is helpful for daily reminders—for example, “Mornings: Get dressed, brush teeth, eat breakfast, pack lunch and schoolwork in book bag”—because it externalizes the demands on working memory.

• A kitchen timer is a useful device for structuring time. “After five minutes, the clock will say it’s Jennifer’s turn to play with this toy. Then she’ll have five minutes before it’s your turn again.”

Rapid Questions May Lead to Slow Answers

Eleven-year-old Tasha is an excellent athlete who never fails to impress adults and peers whenever it comes time to play sports. Tasha enjoys her success on the playground, but also longs for an opportunity to be recognized in class. She has many ideas that she brings up after school in conversation with her parents. “Don’t be afraid to speak up, Tasha,” her mother tells her often. But Tasha is afraid to speak up because she often feels she can’t respond appropriately to questions that come too fast for her to remember and sequence. Tasha’s academic life improves considerably after we hold a meeting at her school to discuss the situation. During the meeting, Tasha’s teacher says that he agrees Tasha is a bright child, with much to offer in class. However, when he gives Tasha a lot of time to respond to questions during class discussion, he feels as though he is putting her on the spot, perhaps making her feel even more uncomfortable. After brain-storming, we decide on a strategy that will involve asking Tasha only one question at a time, and restating the question two orthree times. I also suggest that asking the question slowly, with a softer tone, might help alleviate some of Tasha’a anxiety and help her to be more patient with herself. During therapy, Tasha is encouraged, and agrees to volunteer answers more frequently. She discovers that by choosing when to contribute, she feels a greater sense of control. These relatively small accommodations help Tasha share her unique insights with others.

Stay Calm, and Nobody Gets Hurt!

When a child is silent in school, it may be that he or she is uncomfortable with the pace of questions and expected responses. While some children find rapid-fire Q&A invigorating, others become anxious. When given a chance to process queries calmly and slowly, a child may more readily demonstrate the true extent of her understanding. This approach builds confidence and gives teachers a more valid opportunity to evaluate and grade learning.

Temperament May Be the Key Issue

We see among many children that there is a temperamental preference for processing slowly, for being cautious, even for being more considerate in their approach to learning and understanding new things. Sometimes, this is in opposition to the speed required by various kinds of social institutions, such as schools, or even the pace of play that may be dictated by friends. It’s like the country mouse visiting his cousin in the big city—he may feel fine in his own element, but he’s stressed, suspicious, and awkward when he has to deal with the fast pace and bright lights of Gotham. Increasingly, there are fewer places in our society for a “country mouse” by temperament to shine. If a child’s natural tendency is to process more slowly, be selective about encouraging a faster tempo. In some situations, being able to accelerate will ultimately help kids to feel more comfortable, and he’s more like to accept your guidance if he knows you’ll respect his preferred pace in situations where time zone differences are less critical, or even advantageous.

Not Again . . .

One of the most trying aspects of having limited working memory is that it’s more difficult to apply previous learning to new situations. As a result, underactive working memory makes some children vulnerable to repeating mistakes. Basically, these kids struggle to build on what they’ve already learned.

While Harrison, age ten, is visiting his grandfather, his grandfather introduces him to an old friend. “Harrison, this is my friend, Mr. Tim Jones.” When Harrison replies, “Hi, Tim,” his grandfather gently prompts, “Hello, Mister Jones.” Later that day, the family runs into his grandfather’s friend again, and Harrison exclaims, “There’s Tim—hi.” His grandfather scowls, while his mother says, “Come on, Harrison, you know the rule.” But Harrison doesn’t know the rule—at least if we think of knowing something as having it available in memory. As a result, Harrison barks, “What are you talking about? I only said, ‘There’s Tim.’ ”

Viewed in isolation, an interaction like this might seem trivial, but our ability to apply learning from one situation to the next certainly contributes to the impression we make on others. In Harrison’s case, an underactive working memory causes some of what he’s taught to be lost before it gets stored in longer-term memory, where it will be available for recall at the appropriate time. Kids like Harrison often impress others as rude or disrespectful when the problem has more to do with memory and learning. What’s that you ask? Why can my child remember things he wants to? Well, you’re exactly right. Kids (especially boys as we saw earlier) always remember things of great personal interest more easily. Should we blame kids for wanting to apply less energy to learning what they find less interesting? Scientists refer to this phenomenon as human nature!

LIMITED WORKING MEMORY UNDERMINES THE APPLICATION OF NEW LEARNING

Beware of Misinterpreting Working Memory Difficulties

Thirteen-year-old Krista is standing by her teacher for some one-on-one instruction about how to construct a graph. The graph is posted at the front of the class and will chart how many children attend class each day of the month. Krista has learned to indicate the number of attendees along the vertical axis and the day of the month along the horizontal axis. To check Krista’s retention, her teacher says, “Where do we mark today’s attendance?” Krista correctly tracks where the day of the week intersects with the number of students in class and marks it on the graph. “And if there are fifteen students tomorrow, where will your dot go?” asks the teacher. Krista answers this and subsequent questions correctly.

Krista’s teacher is surprised, however, when she calls on Krista to chart class attendance the next day. Krista is reluctant to step to the front of class. “Remember, Krista, what do we do first?” prompts her teacher. Krista points at the chart. “Have you already counted everyone?” asks her teacher. Krista, embarrassed, nods and hastily looks around the room, trying to count quickly. Her teacher observes that she seems distracted, but suggests, “Go on, Krista, please show us where we mark how many children are in class today. You know this.” Krista points vaguely at the chart and turns again to face the class, trying to discreetly count faces again. “Please show us exactly where to mark attendance on the chart,” says her teacher. Krista stares at the graph and shrugs, her face becoming flushed. Silence turns into awkwardness as Krista wiggles and makes silly faces. “What’s gotten into you today?” asks her teacher. “I know you know this.”

This scenario illustrates one way that working memory deficits can be misinterpreted in school. When kids can’t produce an answer about something their teachers perceive they are able to understand, it raises suspicion about how hard a child is trying. Believing that the child has more than enough intelligence to complete the task (which is true), the teacher feels that he or she has no choice but to interpret the child’s behavior as a form of defiance, resistance, or lack of effort. Krista experiences a similar fate at home. Her mother is concerned because Krista “seems spacey and a little immature.” Her father has a less favorable interpretation of Krista’s inexplicable lapses. “She forgets when it’s convenient for her to forget.”

Krista feels anxious, although she covers it up with a smile. She’s sneaking around in her own life, alternately trying to distract people with silly behavior—“Don’t be mad at me; let’s have fun”—or trying to hide—“What? I didn’t hear you. That’s why I can’t answer.” Although she can’t articulate it, Krista’s cycle of anxiety and avoidance is setting her on a path of self-doubt,and of being a social outsider. It’s an understandable choice. Most kids would rather be seen as the class clown, or as too bored to care, than deal with feelings of incompetence. Unfortunately, when they can summon the courage to admit they don’t know something, others may not believe them because “they’ve done it before.”

Don’t forget . . .

Children with working memory problems may be able to remember something long enough for it to be applied within the immediate context in which it was learned. Yet the same child may struggle to consolidate that information into long-term memory over time—which raises questions about whether the information was actually learned. Learning requires new information to “live in” working memory long enough for it to be consolidated—to sink in —to long-term memory.

Building Memory and Learning Ladders

One of the ways that adults can be effective in teaching something that requires procedural memory (how to do something) is by breaking it down into memorable steps. If you want to teach a child to tie his shoes, for example, you need to sequence those instructions in a clear fashion. A helpful parent might explain, “First put your foot in the shoe, now pull both laces tight, now cross the laces, now tuck one lace under and pull tight,” and so on. Analogies, complete with sound effects, can make such instructions more memorable—“Put your car (foot) in the garage (shoe), now close the doors (cross the laces), lock the door (tuck one lace under and pull tight). Now let’s get our bike and make the first wheel (show how to make the first loop), and the next wheel (second loop) . . . and zoooom, now you can ride away.”

Social learning is also easier if a task, such as introducing oneself, is separated into clear steps—say hello, use a friendly gesture, and smile. For children whose Factor Ex abilities are delayed, explaining what may seem obvious can take the stress out of everyday occurrences. Practicing through role-play can help, too. Encouraging repetition and rehearsal is how we reinforce working memory and help children climb ladders of new learning.

If a child seems to “forget” something over and over . . .

• Provide plenty of opportunities for practice and repetition. Teach Step 1, then Step 2; repeat Step 1 and Step 2; teach Step 3; repeat Steps 1, 2, 3; and so on. Cheer successes along the way.

• Have kids demonstrate or explain it to you, over a series of intervals—in a few minutes, an hour, a half day, and so on.

• When prompting, use both verbal and visual hints.

• Make it easy for a child to admit when he or she is having trouble; bright children are often embarrassed when they don’t “get something” as quickly as they might expect to.

Watch for Changing Signals

When our minds become overwhelmed with too much incoming information, too fast, it’s human nature to shut down. It’s like flooding the engine of an old car—if you step on the gas pedal too much, the engine stalls. We have all seen these signs in kids: They lose eye contact with us or stare right through us; they no longer project any energy with their faces or bodies— their minds have “zoned out”—stalled.

If we want to help kids track information better, it helps to pay attention to the signals they send us as we are presenting information. Try to sustain eye contact and vary the volume and tone of your voice. Effective learning is a well-synchronized dance between instructor and student. Good teachers often pause as they’re presenting new information, to give it sufficient time to be absorbed. They frequently scan the classroom to see who’s “getting it” and who could benefit from an extra prompt. Straightforward strategies such as adjusting physical proximity, volume, and body language are often the fulcrum that tips instruction in a particular student’s favor.

Restructure the Environment as Needed

When there are environmental factors that are adversely affecting working memory, we should attend to those factors directly. A common intervention is to move a child with poor working memory to a seat in the front of the class to avoid distractions. Consulting with a child’s teacher or observing his or her class in action can be very enlightening. Overall, working memory is likely to be more efficient when a child has a buffer from environmental distraction. This is why homework is typically completed more quickly when the television is off and toggling back and forth with MySpace friends is discouraged. Learning to drive is easier in an empty parking lot than on a busy street. Taking the time to cultivate a supportive setting for learning helps young minds encode information at a deeper level. Don’t you remember an article or follow instructions better if you get a little peace and quiet as you read them?

Look and Learn

By observing a child’s reactions to different environments, you can discover her optimal learning situation. Some children find it difficult to concentrate in a multitasking environment, and are easily distracted. However, other kids can’t stay focused when the setting is too “serene”—they miss the stimulating energy they derive from being around others. Stimulation is a “double-edged sword” when it comes to learning. Time spent observing its effect on a child’s ability to learn is the only way to know how best to use or exclude it.

Some Information Has More Memory Appeal

Here’s a phone number many of you will know: 867-5309. It’s the number of “Jenny” in the popular song by 1980s pop band Tommy Tutone. After you hear the song once, it’s a phone number you’re likely to remember for a long time. Like other elements of learning, memory is affected by stimulation. The catchy tune makes it easier—and more stimulating—to remember than, for example, your brother-in-law’s cell phone number. Most of us will notice that a child’s memory is stronger for events that have a degree of heightened emotion. You may have noticed that your daughter is better at remembering what she plans to do at her next birthday party than how to keep her room organized; your son may have extraordinary recall for how to play the latest video game and relatively poor recall for the night he’s supposed to put the trash out for collection. And heightened emotion is why a teenager can offer an eloquent argument, worthy of the Supreme Court, as to why he should have a car, but seems stumped about why he should get a job.

Just as the motivation of a raise prompts you to master a technical task at work, or your interest in vacation makes you more eager to learn the route to the beach than the one to your company’s corporate training center, motivation and interest spark learning in children. Helen, an avid sailor, wanted her daughter Eve to learn how to “reef” (lower) and let out (loosen) the mainsail in case of high winds. “She didn’t get it. I guess my sense of urgency turned her off. I realized that I was barking instructions and drilling her at the wrong times. I needed to wait for the right moment. One day we were playing around on a friend’s small sailing dinghy on a sunny but windy day. I bet Eve her favorite lunch she couldn’t sail us across the inlet and back. We were joking and laughing, and I made sure I rocked the boat to make it a little interesting. By making it fun, and letting her take control in a safe situation, she got the feel of it, because she was feeling motivated to learn.” Done strategically, providing stimulation is like flipping the “on” switch in a child’s brain. Enzymes and proteins get busy creating “engrams,” brain tissue that stores new information in networks of neurons. With practice and rehearsal, those networks build memory muscle, making it easier and faster to remember what has been learned.

Review and Remind

Let’s practice what I’m preaching and rehearse some of the key things we have learned so far about coaching kids’ working memory:

• Break down tasks into clear steps.

• Make associations with previous learning. Apfel sounds like apple. “What happened the last time you started studying before the last minute?”

• Provide plenty of opportunity for practice, giving hands and bodies a chance to help commit new learning to longer-term memory.

• Make learning fun. When appropriate, heighten emotional stimulation so that young minds are “plugged in.”

• Use songs, nursery rhymes, and mnemonics. (“Every Good Boy Deserves Fun.”)

Ask Children to Verbalize What They Have Learned

Asking children to verbally “check in” assures us that they are “on track,” and makes it more likely that they will remember what they’ve been told or taught. It may be as simple as asking your son to restate the sequence of things that are going to happen when he gets home from school. Does he remember which thing comes first? You can try checking to see how a child remembers information over a course of various time spans—in an hour, a half day, the next day, and so on. Whenever I make behavior charts for kids in therapy, we review the goals, and then I immediately turn the chart over and ask them to recite from memory the four or five goals we’ve established. Even if it takes a half dozen tries and lots of high-energy coaching for them to get it right, no one leaves my office until they have successfully completed this task. And it’s not hard to see how satisfied kids are with themselves once they do this. Starting a behavior plan is at least a little bit easier and more fun when it begins with an experience of success.

Finding the Path That Optimizes Working Memory

Children may learn best through visual, auditory, or kinesthetic pathways. Working memory will be more efficient when the optimal “processing pathway” is determined. You may have noticed some kids need to handle things or “do” to learn, while others need verbal instructions, and yet others need a demonstration. Assessing a child’s learning strengths will help you better activate her working memory skills.

Visual learners will often respond best to memory prompts that emphasize visual content such as, “Do you see what we we’ve done?” or visual reminders such as color-coded materials. Conversely, auditory learners respond best to language that highlights listening skills such as, “Do you hear what I am saying?” or strategies such as setting lessons to music. Kinesthetic learners often do best when given a hands-on opportunity to learn. They also thrive on physical forms of reinforcement, such as a hug or a pat on the back.

BOLSTER MEMORY BY PLAYING TO A CHILD’S LEARNING STRENGTHS

Try combining several modalities to reinforce what’s most important for a child to learn. For example, if your preteen needs to learn how to ask someone to dance, you could explain what to do (auditory), demonstrate how to ask (visual), and finally, give her a chance to role-play the challenge (kinesthetic). See if you can determine which approach best speaks to a child’s learning language. If you can’t tell on your own, this awareness is so important it’s worth having a child professionally evaluated. Psychological testing is an excellent way to establish sensory strengths and preferences—information that will help you optimize parent teaching.

Can Working Memory Be Tested?

Relatively few families seek out formal testing of working memory, although such tests are certainly available. More often, working memory is assessed as part of comprehensive testing for ADHD (more accurately described as an executive function evaluation). However, a thorough memory assessment will help you understand the efficiency of a child’s working memory with respect to his peer group. If you pursue evaluation, be sure to inquire about memory strengths as well as challenges. For example, children may be shown pictures of faces in a very rapid manner, and then a second group, and asked to determine which ones they saw in the original group. On another task they may be required to recall sequences of numbers or words presented orally. These tests point to where working memory might be more efficient. (Perhaps all children would benefit from such testing, simply to get baseline data about their memory skills, just as we might want to know their IQ.) Many children out-perform expectations during psychological testing because the testing environment is controlled and calm. To accurately gauge the potential power of a child’s working memory, we need to consider her performance in this type of optimal condition. At the same time, observing a child within the context of a busy classroom provides insight about how his working memory is affected by distraction. In the interest of strategizing, concerned parents and teachers will want to know the range of a child’s working memory skills, and those specific factors that enhance or undermine its performance.

Working Memory Enhances Capability

Just as the ancients established libraries, today we need to continually build computers with greater memory capacity. What most people realize is that the software these computers run must also grow bigger and bigger. There is an unspoken relationship between information and information storage; as one increases, so does the other. It may be less of a race than it is a kind of reciprocity between thinking and remembering. As children develop minds that are more efficient at storing information, the sources of that information demand more of their cognitive resources. Have you noticed that preschool children are now asked to accomplish what kindergarteners or first-graders used to do? Yet businesses complain that graduates are less prepared for the workplace than ever. Maybe a better interpretation is that young people are learning as much as they ever did, but that it takes a lot more information to function effectively in many of today’s careers. This phenomenon underscores how important working memory is to becoming capable in the ways our society now mandates.

Even if we decide to simplify our life, to turn off the fax machine, throw away the phone, and donate the computer, our children will continue to encounter the world’s momentum, increasingly driven by multitasking. Yet our awareness of this reality can inform the ways we help and support our kids. As concerned adults, we are the architects of our children’s lives, and it is up to us to design a childhood that puts tempo and efficiency into perspective. Although we can’t dictate life’s tempo in every context, we can help our children adapt to the demands of information and learning, while also setting appropriate limits. Hearing adults set such boundaries is more often than not a comforting experience for kids.

Memory is the essence of shared experience—joining the past with the present, self to other, converting dreams to reality. However incredulous we might be about how much information we manage now, it will almost certainly increase in the years to come. As our memory evolves, perhaps so will our future—in ways we cannot yet imagine. We will undoubtedly discover new ways to think and remember more efficiently, and those children who learn to thrive will inevitably need the Eight Pillars more than ever. Our journey has allowed us to discuss and visit so much that is important in a child’s development, yet we have two more critical stops to make. In the next chapter we will see how working memory and other pillars of Factor Ex contribute to self-awareness and control. The benefits that result from a young mind being able to hold a mirror up to itself are remarkable—and something we will surely want to remember.