Does anyone have any recommended resources for improving working memory? Not test prepping or anything but workbooks/activities/computer programs whatever that would help improve a child's working memory and attention. Thanks for any recommendations!

Isn't that what the classic memory game is for? hasbro memory game
Spades, chess, go fish, sudoku

I could be wrong, but I think working memory is the short term memory where you hold little details until you piece it together to make a decision. If that what you're working on then that's what family game night is for. How old are your kids? PBS kids has online games that are cartoon and fun but with built-in Skill boosters.
Eta:
If processing input is also part of working memory then encouraging retelling of stories could help. They Always want to tell you what you just saw on tv even though you just saw it. I should probably quit now because I don't what you're trying to work exactly. I think that's how they're enlarging their working memory, by talking outloud.

Chess in particular. We played that the new player could swap sides at any time.
The card game 'concentration.' Having a word of the day that everyone tries to work into general conversation flow.

Hangman

Even tic tac toe for young children...anything where you have to keep track of stuff.

Another approach is to work on how to develop systems that decrease the demand for WM. My recent blog post have been all about that. Basically when info gets so well learned that it goes into long term memory as one chunk you can handle lots more without going over thw WM limit. For example a n area code may be 3 digits but it only occupies 1 chunk once it becomes familar.

You can teach kids to develop their own routines and monitor and refine then. What a life lesson!

Smiles
Grinity

There are some video games for that, like this:
http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~ckanan/FluidIntelligence.html

OMG! I'm so glad to hear you say this. ha! My husband and I are always wondering if other kids do this. It drives us crazy, but we try to just listen. Then we laugh about it later. We're thinking, "yeah, I know, just watched it with you!"

Working memory is the cognitive function responsible for keeping information online, manipulating it, and using it in your thinking. It is the way that you delegate the things you encounter to the parts of your brain that can take action. In this way, working memory is necessary for staying focused on a task, blocking out distractions, and keeping you updated and aware about what’s going on around. you.http://www.cogmed.com/about-working-memory

According to his WISC IV scores my son's working memory is low (it is often low in ADHD/ADD kids although my son has not been diagnosed . So, I am reading "The Mislabled Child" book and Eides talks a bit about how thiscan be improved greatly. It also explained certain annoying behaviors of my son's. Now, since he's been diagnosed with a the vision problem I believe and am told that such a problem affects attention and working memory and both will improve once the vision problem is treated (something like b/c his vision is deficient and b/c his brain has to work so hard on just seeing and seeing properly it affects the power going to the function of his working memory and attention.) However, it is soooo correlated with success in life and school I would love not to just wait for vision therapy to help but do excercises/games to specifically improve it.

I have to say I never played many of those games you mentoned LOL ... I have great worjing memory.

I found some computer games that are suppose to work it! Eides gives some ideas too. And I was just wondering if anyone hear could recommend any! Thanks!

Also that link I linked is an entire system suppose to help improve the WM in ADHD kids etc. But it is too expensive for us right now!!!

In a bit of a hurry here, but thought our experience might hold out some hope for folks! Our 2e ds scored relatively low in WM on his initial WISC in 2nd grade, and we'd hoped to somehow work on improving it... but got so caught up in accommodating/remediating dysgraphia and also attempting to get him appropriate intellectual challenge in school that we never did do anything specific to target WM. In spite of that, his WM scores did in fact improve quite a bit when he was re-tested with the WISC at the end of 5th grade. His neuropsych told us that WM is one area that can improve and many times does improve just with maturity.

polarbear

eta - fwiw, I still have working on it as a goal for ds if we ever find the time!

Whatever it's worth, we are talking about the same thing.  

La Texican - yes, I realize that. When you couched your response in "I could be wrong..." I looked up and gave the more scientific definition for you (and others). I should have mentioned, I guess, that I realize that you are right and that you basically said the same thing. Sorry.

Thanks for the suggestions all! I will incorporate them into our "game night" (when we actually have that - we try but between work, therapies, soccer, homework, stories, bath, etc. etc. we often don't get around to doing 'game night' on a consistent basis). The computer games that help are handy b/c I can give those to DS to play while I cook dinner for example or do dishes. Or workbook type acivities I could slip into homework, etc. Also verbal games that we play while drving in the car are handy. Like yesterday during our 20 minute drive to the pool I tried a verbal game Eides suggested (which is just listing numbers and seeing if the kids could give the list back to me in backwards order). They got into it being a "game."

Thanks, Grinity, I will check out your blog.

Polarbear - I hear you! I am glad to hear that it does also improve with maturity. Thanks for sharing that. Apparently, it was once thought to be fixed (according the Eides book). But research is showing that playing certain games, ect. have a big impact. It is good to know (and a relief) that maturity also plays a factor (it also makes sense). A lot of the complaints that I and teachers have about DS I realize now are directly related to his poor working memory. I just want to find a way to work on it over the summer and hope to see some improvement in the fall when he starts school.

Thanks again all!

Sorry for any confusion.  Awkward.
Again, I don't know how old your child is or how much of a hinderence the low working memory is at this point, but, education does make kids smarter.  Working on the basics of grammer, arithmatic, and writing essays, the sluggish parts of education, provides a framework for manipulating and directing information for use in your thinking.  
I'm sure that since you're worried about WM he is most probably not eager to work extra on reading writing and 'rithmatic.  Those kinds of lessons take away a lot of the difficulty that makes these lessons difficult.  

Here some people discuss low working memory, slow processing speed as it relates between the test results and guiding your child.
http://www.mothering.com/community/t/1341396/wisc-iv-working-memory-and-processing-speed

This following  link shows upon skimming it that low working memory shows up in some kids as math disability.  
http://web.missouri.edu/~gearyd/JECP04.pdf
Quote:
With formal schooling and especially with complex problems, such as 27 + 38, children will use the commonly taught columnar strategy (i.e., summing the ones-column integers and then summing the tens-column integers).
Children with MD. During the solving of simple arithmetic problems (e.g., 4 + 3), children with MD use the same types of strategies (e.g., verbal counting) as their nor- mally achieving peers, but differ in the strategy mix, strategy accuracy, and in the pat- tern of developmental change 

Unquote.

The working memory problem in that case is knowing which addition strategy to use.  The working memory challenge: how to create the  knowledge & skills bank so they can begin to map the memory process when they have started off with a comparatively low working memory? I said comparatively low.  Since you are posting on a gifted forum I assume you're referring to the not uncommon  issue of low working memory and/or processing speed paired with high reasoning abilities.  

I've read that in that type of situation it's better to make use of tools to teach at the higher conceptional level matching the reasoning abilities, for example allowing a multiplication chart for reference while teaching long division, which uses multiplication, instead of waiting for the total memorization of the multiplication table.

I'm not suggesting you "do all this" I'm repeating things i've read discussing this hoping it might be helpful understanding how some people are talking about these problems.    iow many of these things are self correcting as you continue to pursue an education.  It can't always be self correcting because otherwise why would it be a widely identified problem.  

I like the description on page one of the following link describing the memory process.
http://www.yorku.ca/earmstro/courses/2nd_yr/memorization_and_practice.pdf

La Texican, thanks for the info and your thoughts. My son at issue is 6 1/2. Oddly, he does well in reading and math comprehension etc. But you're right - he is not eagar to work on them (though he loves to be read to) (however much of that could be attriuted to his vision problem and his hypotonia, which is why when those issues are treated the attention and WM improve). But surprishingly he does really well in them - hhe is scoring ahead of his peers at school. He has great long term memory. But is the spacey kid - the kind you can say "go brush your teeth, put on your clothes then come down and put on your shoes and don't forget to bring your socks with you!" And then you find him making up a story in the bathroom with nothing done - maybe he got his teeth brushed. And he'll be like "Oh I forgot what did you want me to do again?" LOL

So hglad to hear maturity and edication help!

Thanks for the links too!

"you're referring to the not uncommon issue of low working memory and/or processing speed paired with high reasoning abilities."

Yes!

Hi, just saw this thread and wanted to add a piece to the puzzle. Working memory is a shared space for all the conscious/near-conscious stuff going on in the mind.

If your child is curious, analytical, and creative then what may really be going on is they are running a good percentage of their working memory on entertaining thoughts and looking for deeper understandings.

If my basic wm has 9 good buckets in it, I may have two working on something curious I saw earlier. If you ask me to remember 7 numbers, I may eat another bucket or two noticing patterns between the numbers rather than just the mundane dropping them into the buckets. Suddenly I seem to have only five buckets!

So maybe intentional and active focus are the skills that need support and not so much memory itself. Many non-educational games like time management ones (e.g. run your own restaurant) can support that type of focus.

Zen, thank you. I do believe this may be what's going on with my DS6. He is constantly creating. He always writing stories in his head. He has "witten" books with over 20 chapters. He dictates them I type them verbatium (incidentally his books are actually good - on par with patterson - complicated sci fi plots invoving time travel, etc ) . He is very very creative. He is often making up stories in his head to dictate to me later. I think that is takign up a lot of WM space. Also he does have a vision disorder so I assume that compensating mfor that may be taking up space as well.

Also, if he sees/hears/notices something he doesn't understand, he keeps it in his head and has a hard time moving on to another task or attending to another task until he has figured whatever it is out. I notice this with him a lot. He has actually started saying it to us.... "wait! I need to go aback and understand what you were saying in your conversation about [such and such] befroe I can do [x]" And it is usually and adult matter that he shouldn;t be listeing to....LOL

Can you elaborate on this? I am not familar with this game. Are there other games and programs that work this type of skil? Are there ways to help with this in every day life? Thanks again!

I was talking to the pre-k teacher briefly during a soccer game last year and she said she can clearly tell which kids played a lot of video games because they were better at problem solving puzzles and cutting with scissors. She obviously meant non-educational games.

I'm convinced that in kids, this is at least partly a maturation issue.

Anyway.

Someone asked about "multi-tasking" or time-management video gaming. Most of these types of games are of the simulation variety, and they tend to be marketed to girls more than to boys. I have a few suggestions there that I know are reasonably appealing and good for this sort of thing.


Coolmath has a couple of these as little flash player games-- Lemonade Stand is the classic, but there are many variants of it:

http://www.coolmath-games.com/lemonade/index.html
http://www.coolmath-games.com/0-coffee-shop/index.html
http://www.coolmath-games.com/0-papas-freezeria/index.html

Those will probably keep kids under 6 busy for quite some time.

One game that my DD was obsessive about when she was 6-8 yo was the "PetVet" series. They were bargain priced even then, but it looks like now they are bundled with three games for under ten bucks via Amazon.

I actually recommend the Pet Vet games. There is a lot to keep track of while the game is running. Frankly, I found it challenging at the higher levels, too. Be aware that there is a distinctly 'girly' feel about things, though-- the "vet" is a young blonde woman, and many of the decor choices are pink, purple, etc. It may also be upsetting to some very sensitive kids, as the animals can become "ill" or even (gasp) die... if you don't successfully manage to take care of them.

Some of the "Sim-" and "Tycoon" games also have this time-management quality about them-- it's a matter of constant tinkering with several things at once. Juggling tasks and goals, planning, that kind of thing.

Be warned that this sort of addictive video game may lead to table gaming, entrepreneurial scheming, and RPG time while they hang out with the RPG gamers during adolescence, however. (D&D has really branched out, I must say... but it's still the same kind of geeky kids playing. Mine included. LOL. )

My own DDs WMI improved from the 13th to 80-90th percentiles in about 2.5 yrs, we did a course of OT, cranio sacral physio, piano, swimming, remediation at school, ummm not sure what else. And then diet. I am pretty sure the diet had the biggest impact. She's vastly improved, but she's still definitely ADD, though unmedicated as she can't tolerate the meds.

Howler Karma - there is a massive growth in the Executive functions in adolescence - but it's a use it or loose it development, all the pathways not used are pruned away soon after. A kid with ADD who is so dysfunctional that they can't make good use of that developmental surge is going to end up worse off. This is the arguemwnt of one prominent paed here in Australia for medication - give the child the medical support they need to be normally functional and tHus allow the other therapies and discipline you want to use to work so that when that surge hits they get maximum benefit and hopefully stop medication.