Can working memory be trained? The answer to this is complex because the jury is still out. Read the section, Can Working Memory be Trained in chapter 4 (Read the Educational Applications section of the chapter) and summarize what you have learned.

89 WORKING MEMORY Gathercole et al. found that children with low working memory scores were typically described by their teachers as "dreamy" or inattentive; however ADHD may well be responsible as it is linked to working memory performance. EDUCATIONAL APPLICATIONS Variants of the working span task are already being applied to practical problems. They formi an important component of a battery of tests developed by Susan Gathercole and Susan Pickeriag based on the multicomponent work- ing memory model, which they have applied to detecting and predicting learning problems in school-age children (Gathercole & Pickering, 2000al. Their test battery has separate meas- cres of phonological loop and sketchpad per- formance based on tasks involving verbal or visuo-spatial STM, together with complex span tasks involving visual and verbal pro- cessing. As in the Daneman and Carpenter task, these demand simultaneously storing and manipulating information and hence are assumed to tap the central executive Analysis of the performance of school-age children is broadly consistent with predictions from the multicomponent model, allowing the separate components of working memory to be estimated and related to academic performance. Children who have been identified as having special educational needs perform poorly over- all on the working memory battery (Gather- cole Pickering, Knight, & Stegmann, 2004). Scores on specific subrests are also informative, with delayed reading and arithmetic being asso ciated with poor performance on both phono- logical STM and complex span tasks in 7- to 8-year-old children (Gathercole & Pickering, 2000b), while complex span continues to pre- dict maths and science scores at the age of 14 (Gathercole. Lamont, &- Alloway, 2006). What are children with poor working memory performance like? Gathercole's group decided to sit in on classes and observe how these children differed from their classmates. Children with low working memory scores were typically described by their teachers as "dreamy" or inattentive; not disruptive, but failing to follow instructions and to do the right thing at the right time. Gathercole et al. note however, that the instructions were often quite complex, for example "Put your reading cards back in the envelope, your pen- cils back in the box, and then sit on the carper in the corner." The child would begin the task and then apparently lose track. The children themselves reported that they forgot. How- ever, this memory problem was not something that the teacher typically realized It later became clear that a good number of these children had been diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity dis- order), which, as its name suggests, has two potentially separable components of which one-attention deficit-might well be linked to working memory performance (Holmes, Gathercole, Place, Dunning, Hilton, &c Elliott, 2010). This is being investigated by Gathercole's group, which has developed a program to ena- ble teachers to identify children with problems based on working memory limitations and to modify their teaching accordingly (Gathercole & Alloway, 2008). d re at re -D- ar of Iti- eed the lly Can working memory be trained? While views differ on the theoretical interpre- tation of working memory, there is general agreement that it plays an important role in life, and that a working memory deficit can be a major handicap. Could it be remedied, per- haps by training. This question was addressed by Torkel Klingberg, a Swedish neurologist who developed a training program he named CogmedTM. This was presented in a format resembling a computer game, with participants ore