Are you frustrated because your child can remember all the lyrics to the songs on their iPod, but can’t remember what they studied last night for today’s science test?
As many as 10 percent of children have a ‘poor working memory,’ it is being reported by MSNBC.
“You can think of working memory as a pure measure of your child’s potential,” said Dr. Tracey Alloway of Britain’s Durham University. “Some psychologists consider working memory to be the new IQ because we find that working memory is the single most important predictor of learning.”
In a nutshell – children who appear to be lazy or not living up to their potential might actually need help.
Alloway said with early identification and memory training, affected children can do better in school and in life.
Dr. Mel Levine, co-founder of All Kinds of Minds, a non-profit organization that studies learning differences, said the working memory allows a reader to remember what they read at the beginning of the page when they have reached the end of the page.
A child who has a poor working memory will become lost in the middle of the page, Levine said.
“In children with learning difficulties, it becomes a huge issue, especially around middle school where the demands on working memory grow dramatically,” Levine said.
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