RESEARCH ARTICLES

a Department of Psychology, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, UK
b Department of English Literature, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ, UK
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology - journal homepage:
www.elsevier.com/locate/jecp

Summary
There is growing evidence for the relationship between working memory and academic attainment. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether working memory is simply a proxy for IQ or whether there is a unique contribution to learning outcomes.

The findings indicate that children’s working memory skills at 5 years of age were the best predictor of literacy and numeracy 6 years later. IQ, in contrast, accounted for a smaller portion of unique variance to these learning outcomes. The results demonstrate that working memory is not a proxy for IQ but rather represents a dissociable cognitive skill with unique links to academic attainment. Critically, we find that working memory at the start of formal education is a more powerful predictor of subsequent academic success than IQ. This result has important implications for education, particularly with respect to intervention.
2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
2006, 59 (4), 745–759

Summary
Links have recently been established between measures of educational attainment and both verbal and visuo-spatial aspects of working memory. Relationships have also been identified between specific executive functions—shifting, updating, and inhibition—and scholastic achievement.

In the present study, scholastic attainment, shifting, updating, inhibition, and verbal and visuo-spatial working memory were assessed in 11 and 12 year old children. Exploratory factor analysis identified two executive factors: one associated with updating functions and one associated with inhibition.

Updating abilities were closely linked with performance on both verbal and visuo-spatial working memory span tasks. Working memory was closely linked with attainment in English and mathematics, and inhibition was associated with achievement in English, mathematics, and science.

Domain-specific associations existed between verbal working memory and attainment in English, and between visuo-spatial working memory and attainment in English, mathematics and science. Implications of the findings for the theoretical analysis of executive functioning, working memory and children’s learning are discussed.

DEVELOPMENTAL NEUROPSYCHOLOGY, 19(3), 273–293
Copyright © 2001, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Summary
Children’s mathematical skills were considered in relation to executive functions. Using multiple measures—including the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST), dual-task performance, Stroop task, and counting span—it was found that mathematical ability was significantly correlated with all measures of executive functioning, with the exception of dual-task performance. Furthermore, regression analyses revealed that each executive function measure predicted unique variance in mathematics ability.

These results are discussed in terms of a central executive with diverse functions (Shallice&Burgess, 1996) and with recent evidence from Miyake, et al. (2000) showing the unity and diversity among executive functions. It is proposed that the particular difficulties for children of lower mathematical ability are lack of inhibition and poor working memory, which result in problems with switching and evaluation of new strategies for dealing with a particular task. The practical and theoretical implications of these results are discussed, along with suggestions for task changes and longitudinal studies that would clarify theoretical and developmental issues related to executive functioning.

Charles Hulme, University College London and University of Oslo
Developmental Psychology © 2012 American Psychological Association
2013, Vol. 49, No. 2, 270–291

Summary
It has been suggested that working memory training programs are effective both as treatments for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and other cognitive disorders in children and as a tool to improve cognitive ability and scholastic attainment in typically developing children and adults. However, effects across studies appear to be variable, and a systematic meta-analytic review was undertaken. To be included in the review, studies had to be randomized controlled trials or quasi-experiments without randomization, have a treatment, and have either a treated group or an untreated control group.

Twenty-three studies with 30 group comparisons met the criteria for inclusion. The studies included involved clinical samples and samples of typically developing children and adults. Meta-analyses indicated that the programs produced reliable short-term improvements in working memory skills. For verbal working memory, these near-transfer effects were not sustained at follow-up, whereas for visuospatial working memory, limited evidence suggested that such effects might be maintained.

More importantly, there was no convincing evidence of the generalization of working memory training to other skills (nonverbal and verbal ability, inhibitory processes in attention, word decoding, and arithmetic).
The authors conclude that memory training programs appear to produce short-term, specific training effects that do not generalize. Possible limitations of the review (including age differences in the samples and the variety of different clinical conditions included) are noted. However, current findings cast doubt on both the clinical relevance of working memory training programs and their utility as methods of enhancing cognitive functioning in typically developing children and healthy adults.

1Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Neurosciences and Mental HealthResearch Program, Toronto, Canada
2Department of Psychology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
3Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
4ADHD Clinic, Children’s and Women’s Health Centre of British Columbia, Vancouver,British Columbia, Canada
5Department of Human Development & Applied Psychology, University of Toronto,Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Child Neuropsychology - Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:

Summary
This study investigated the role of inattention and working memory in predicting academic achievement in 145 adolescents aged 13 to 18 referred for attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Path analysis was used to examine whether auditory-verbal and visual-spatial working memory would mediate the relationships between classroom inattention symptoms and achievement outcomes. Results provide support for the mediational model. Behavioural inattention significantly predicted both auditory-verbal and visual-spatial working memory performance. Auditory-verbal working memory was strongly associated with adolescents’ achievement in reading and mathematics, while visual spatial working memory was only associated with achievement in mathematics.

The path from inattention symptoms to reading was partially mediated by the working memory variables, but the path from inattention to mathematics was not mediated by working memory. The proposed model demonstrated a good fit to the data and explained a substantial amount of variance in the adolescents’ achievement outcomes. These findings imply that working memory is a risk factor for academic failure for adolescents with attentional problems.

James J. Heckman is the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at The University of Chicago, a Nobel Laureate in economics and an expert in the economics of human development.
James Heckman, Rodrigo Pinto and Peter Savelyev. (2013). “Understanding the Mechanisms Through Which an Influential Early Childhood Program Boosted Adult Outcomes.” American Economic Review 2013, 103(6): 2052–2086.
www.heckmanequation.org

Summary
Using more than 35 years of data on the Perry Preschool program, Professor James Heckman has shown that quality early childhood education programs for disadvantaged children can dramatically improve outcomes in education, employment and health. A new study by Heckman and co-authors Rodrigo Pinto of The University of Chicago and Peter Savelyev of Vanderbilt University, a look at the development of character skills that increase motivation and reduce negative externalizing behaviors. The findings indicate that those who evaluate early childhood education programs solely on their ability to raise IQ miss the real driver of success: character skills that have far greater impact on achievement and life outcomes.