Identifying and Improving The Working Memory Related Issues In Your Child

Many a times, it is observed that a child faces issues with his/her remembering power regarding what he/she is doing. For example, the child is cooking sushi and in between the phone rings, and he forgets that he needs to keep toss the Shushi as well. This problem is called working memory related issue. There are many ways that one can adopt for improving the Working Memory of a child. Let’s first see how we can identify that the child is suffering from working memory issue.

Test for Identifying Working Memory Issue in a Child

Working memory is the executive short term memory that is required to complete the task in hand. If your child often forgets what he is supposed to do and starts with some other work, then he/she might be suffering with working memory related issue. Some instances could include, your child was supposed to go upstairs and clean up the room and rather goes upstairs and forgets to do the job in hand and gets involved in some other activity.  In case you observe such symptoms in your kid for multiple instances, then he/she is suffering from working memory issues and needs your help to get over it.

Improving the Working Memory of a Child

Problem with the working memory can hamper your child’s success in many ways in the near future. He might face difficulty in resolving math problems or retain what he is reading. He often needs to go back to previous paragraph to remember what he had been reading to retain his thought process while reading. It becomes better, as your child grows. However, people who have working memory related issues as a child may suffer from the same in the later years of their life also. Some ways to strengthen working memory is to keep a to-do list.

Some Ways in which you can train your Child’s Brain to retain things are as below :- 

Build up  Visualization Skills

Ask your child to create a picture of how he plans to do something. This will help him retain things in a better manner. Brain can retain and remember picture better than a list of things that need to be done. You can start this with asking your child visualize the way he is going to do the task and then he can draw what he is supposed to do. Now ask him to complete the work as he has visualized and then draw it on a piece of paper. Slowly he can just keep visualizing the task and work towards the expected goal. 

Ask your Child to Narrate his Plan before executing it

You may ask your child to narrate his plan before executing it in actual. Like he has this new-found hobby to learn basketball and he is learning to dribble. Then you ask him to teach you how to dribble. Teaching often helps your child’s brain to retain better what he has learned. This exercise will help in improving the Working Memory of a child. 

Practice Memory Improving Games with your Child

You may also practice various memory improvement games with your child. There are many memory improving games available in the market, like flipping similar cards or you can ask him to reproduce what he has just learned onto a sheet of paper. Writing also helps the brain to retain things better. Writing once is like reading it for twenty times and can help in improving the Working Memory of a child. Some of the memory improvement games available in the market are Crazy Eights, Uno, Go Fish and War.