Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Working memory - why is it deemphasized here?

I just want to clarify that I don't mean that the younger one is more gifted than the older one, just that his giftedness is more obvious. I also don't think that the WMI score is the only reason for the difference, but I do think that the younger one's working memory is extremely helpful to him.

http://www.uel.ac.uk/studentservices/supportingyou/staff/dyspraxia.htm

Working/Short Term Memory- the information processing stage where sounds or symbols are temporarily stored (short term) or manipulated (working) before being discarded or transferred into long-term memory. This will lead to problems remembering sequences of instructions, forgetfulness, slow retrieval of information, recalling what they have just been told, following group discussions, going off on a tangent, mental calculations, being organised, managing time and, multi-tasking.

I have always had problems with these things when I had anxiety or a migraine or both. I think my son, who was diagnosed with dyspraxia might be the same way. He was tested when he was getting a migraine and was tired from not having slept well the night before because of the anxiety.

But it looks to me like his working memory is much better than mine. He is able to solve math problems with multiple steps with very little writing because he uses mental math and combines steps and somehow gets the right answer while I have to write out every step to get the answer.

He always did very well on games that required good visual working memory at home on his computer yet several years ago the OT who tested him said he needed to work on his visual memory. She also noticed that he was showing signs of anxiety. I asked her why he could see a word once and remember the spelling if he had a problem with visual memory and she said it was a different part of the brain. He is learning Kanji without any problem. He can retrieve information quickly and he can multi-task. He is lightening fast with jokes and puns but he also notices visual puns that I would never notice. He not only makes jokes but acts out his improv scenarios with his ability to mimic sounds, accents, mannerisms, etc. It looks to me like improv would require a good working memory.

He has no problems with sequencing and he can remember last minute changes in musical theater dances and do the performance without a problem without having practiced the changes.

He can very quickly tell you where every key is on a qwerty keyboard but he says he doesn't see it in his head. He has to imagine touching the keys. He does it so fast you would think that he can see it in his head. He is learning the dvorak keyboard now and can type high frequency words faster than on qwerty.

I just don't know. None of this makes sense to me.

Another random thought to toss out there - for a lot of us here with 2e kiddos, the "low" working memory score is relative to other very high subtest scores. So - our kids aren't necessarily working with a *truly* low working memory, but perhaps an average or slightly-above-average WM. I remember when our ds had his first neuropsych eval at 8 years old, his WM score came in at around the 75th percentile for his age group, his processing speed score which was around the 50-60th percentile and his WM score was higher but not anywhere near his VIQ/PRI scores. His neuropsych focused on the need for remediation/accommodations for factors impacting his processing speed, and I remember asking whether or not WM wasn't also something we needed to remediate/accommodate. Her answer was that his score, even though it wasn't up as stratospherically high as the VIQ/PRI, was still adequate and that WM was something that worked more like an on/off switch - either you have it or you don't... but an average or slightly-above-average WM was not an issue for a HG/EG/PG kid in and of itself. One gotcha there though is with some disabilities such as dysgraphia (which our ds has)... WM can get entirely consumed by something like the act of handwriting... otoh, it wouldn't matter for a dysgraphic if they had very little WM or were up in the 99.9th percentile - the act of handwriting would still consume it all and leave nothing over for other parts of the writing task.

So that's how I understand it in the one instance of being relative to my one child - which isn't much re understanding! But fwiw...

polarbear

Very well explained.

This is a really good point. I scored right in the average range for digit span on the tests here http://www.cambridgebrainsciences.com/user/login/, but abysmally low on the test for directional memory (spatial span). (No surprise. I could get lost in a cardboard box. I definitely have some kind of LD or something. It's quite humbling.) My DD did better than I did on the spatial memory test, but I think she was in the average range, perhaps even slightly below average, whereas she was above average (for an adult) for digit span. I'd never say I have a good short-term memory. Right now it's probably at its worst ever; I'm on a med that causes brain fog. The only thing I have an unusual memory for is spelling--I'm in the "see a word once" camp.

I call it being directionally dyslexic. My navigational skill without maps is horrible.

I mix up digits sometimes too. Never letters. Only numbers. Weird. I love it when I do it to phone numbers.

However, my mapreading skills are great. I can use maps to get anywhere.

In the woods? Even if I've walked the same path a ton of times, I will get lost. That was always fun when that happened.

This is true for my son with dysgraphia. When he is allowed to type he writes very well.

I have a child who has moved from the 13th to 80-90th percentile for WM after 2.5yrs of intervention. It SHOWS. And her sister has an (SBV) WM score on the 99.8 or possibly 99.9th (can't remember - haha!). That gap also shows. There is not a doubt in my mind that WM matters. BUT, to me it's not what makes my kids thinking gifted. Performance, particularly at school, yes. And the crippling lack of it crippled my eldest's development and depressed her IQ (which is now rising again). But while I notice my second child learns facts (radically) faster than her older sister did at the same age it's the little thoughts that she shares in quiet moments that knock my socks off.

In the course of trying to remediate my eldest I have figured out that I myself have almost no visual WM to speak of, my auditory WM is much stronger. Which is pretty funny as I work in a visual field. I tend to believe that as long as one has "enough" WM (whereever that line in the sand may be) and coping mechanisms for one's weaker patches (if I am reading a list of numbers I will forget them instantly unless I make sure I "hear" them in my head as I read them) I don't know that a relative weakness in WM is a huge problem. My feeling is that those of us who have "enough" WM to match our intellect will naturally developing solutions for our weird gaps, naturally make use of our strengths and not really think about it that much. The ones with astonishing WM will stand out and the ones with really poor WM will not look as gifted as they are, or not look gifted at all, and likely have LDs at work... The question is much of a gap between reasoning ability and WM can a person tolerate and function like they have "enough".

It seems that 80-90th percentile is probably "enough" for my MG child. I think she has other issues that are a bigger problem for her than WM these days, which are not necessarily directly tied to WM but like dysgraphia maybe get tangled up in there a bit.

I was just thinking about this some more while doing some house work and chasing three sick kids. My child who shifted from the 13th to 80-90th, the various treatments we did definitely worked, but I think that part of the shift came from my trying a VSL spelling technique with her, which dramatically improved her spelling. I think she learned, through that process, to map her aural memory to her stronger visual memory (she's the opposite to me). I have learned to "hear" what I see if I need to remember it, I believe that she has learned to "see" what she hears in order to improve her recall.

I think that more working memory is always better, in terms of overall intelligence as well as enabling higher achievement. While I certainly wouldn't disagree that one doesn't need a high working memory score on a particular test to be gifted, it's obvious to me that any particular gifted person would be more gifted with more working memory. I really don't think it's the case that a person gives exactly the same output, only slower, than they would with substantially more working memory.

People simply aren't computers, which can compute the exact same output regardless of underlying storage mechanisms, though the working memory concept apparently came in part from thinking about the brain as similar to a computer. And while I certainly think that a person can work around limitations by use of external aids like paper, and highly effective people would almost all tend to do this to some extent, it just can't be true that a person's brain operates extended onto paper the way it does natively.

However, the more I look into this the more I feel that working memory probably isn't tested well at this point. I also don't think working memory is just short-term memory for recently input symbols, etc. I looked at the technical reports for the WISC out of curiosity as to the justification for considering memory for digit strings etc. to be a good measure for working memory overall, and found a major reliance on a study of performance by schizophrenics on a card-based test, with little further explanation. I looked up that study (it's available as a PDF) and didn't come away with an understanding of why (for example) digit span testing would be a good measure of overall working memory.

With evidence that working memory tests give very different results depending on the subject matter, I'd want to know much more before concluding that a low working memory score on a particular IQ test was an indication of overall working memory performance. I think that first-hand accounts of people manipulating complex models in their heads indicate good working memory of a certain type, regardless of subtest scores. This means to me that the working memory scores on IQ tests are best seen as possible indicators of learning disabilities, but are useless for determining giftedness (though I still think working memory in general is important to giftedness).

One question of mine is the extent to which one's memory characteristics guide one's choice of activities (this idea is ripped off from another recent thread). Engineers might have working memory highly tuned for visual spatial manipulations, etc. Another question of mine is the extent to which certain functions or parts of working memory deal with retrieval and manipulation of information from long-term memory, and which other ones-- which might tend to be the ones more affected by learning disabilities on testing-- deal more with external input. Or, if that's a stupid question, what measures might be taken to minimize the impact of learning disabilities on input during working memory testing?

I think it would be interesting and very valuable to test working memory regarding a problem domain with which the testee was very familiar. That sort of testing might never show up on a general IQ test, as it's too individual-specific. However, I'd bet that even though working memory can highly influence intelligence (I'm convinced of this) any domain-specific working memory effects would tend to show up more on achievement tests, especially timed ones, except of course that they'd not be obvious.