Working Memory

Our working memory allows us to integrate current perceptual information with stored knowledge and to consciously manipulate the information by thinking and talking about it and rehearing it, to ensure its storage in long-term memory. However, working memory only holds the information for 15 to 20 seconds and then it’s discarded. Also, the working-memory can only process 7 +/- 2 discrete bits of information at a time. Therefore, special education evaluations need to consider these cognitive limitations and supplementary aids and services can assist a student with disabilities by:

1. Helping them to connect, or chunk this information. Grouping information together in categories or classifications is another form of chunking. We may therefore be able to help our students by telling them what the connections are or how the information fits together and assist the students to make these connections on their own. This may explain why identifying similarities and differences is the teaching & learning strategy most correlated with student achievement, which should be assessed with special education evaluations and noted on the corresponding reports and IEP PLAAFP statements. In fact, teaching and learning strategies that assist the student in identifying similarities and differences in the subject area causing the student problems may be integrated into special education reports and supplementary aids and services for students with disabilities.

2. Providing them with many opportunities to rehearse, elaborate on and/or work with the information, which increases its duration in working memory and facilitating its storage in long-term memory. Mnemonic techniques, such as acronyms and acrostics associate a list of items in order with known word or sentence, thereby making them easier to remember, can assist in this endeavor. Others can include:

    a. Rote rehearsal, which consists of repeating the information, or skill, over and over again. Eventually this skill or information can be processed automatically, without much conscious attention or energy, which can now be directed to another skill, activity, or other information. Automaticity is a goal because it ensures an efficient use of cognitive resources.

    b. Elaborative rehearsal – student must elaborate on information in a manner that enhances understanding and retention of that information. It makes the information more meaningful and relevant to the student.

Stakeholders can access examples of research-based strategies to rehearse and practice the needed knowledge and skills in the following hyperlinked resources:

• Cues, questions, and advanced organizers

• Practice and homework

Consequently, a student's mnemonics techniques should be assessed with special education evaluations and noted on the corresponding reports and IEP PLAAFP statements. In fact, teaching and learning strategies that assist the student in mnemonic techniques in the subject area causing the student problems may be integrated into special education reports and supplementary aids and services for students with disabilities.

3. Assisting them in seeing the relevance of the information to be learned. What we want the student to learn and recall must be meaningful for the student. Two effective strategies which stakeholders can utilize in these teaching and learning activities are:

      a. Similarities - Information that fits into the students cognitive network, is more likely to be remembered.  One way to make information more meaningful is to associate or compare the information/concept with known concepts/information. This connects the unfamiliar and new with something that is already familiar and meaningful. This can be accomplished by using analogies, similes and metaphors, as exemplified in these hyperlinked resources.

    b. Motivation - Whatever interventions stakeholders utilize, students must attend to them. Therefore, teachers, administrators, parents, school-based intervention &/or IEP teams should consider the hyperlinked resources and recommendations referenced under attention. In addition, emotion almost always makes information more vivid, which enhances attention and memory.  The neurochemical system adds to this vividness and prepares the body for fight, flight or fright. Therefore, setting up learning experiences, which evoke emotions, such as role-playing, simulations and real-life problem solving, which also make information more relevant and meaningful, also enhances memory. On the other hand, the stress response (i.e. fright, fight and flight) if prolonged in school, due to academic frustrations, bullies, insults, etc., can distract student from more adaptive information/responses.