Working memory profiles of children with specific reading disorder who learn to read in a language with consistent grapheme-phoneme correspondence: the case of Greek.   Elvira Masoura School of Psychology Department of Experimental Cognitive psychology Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Characteristics of working memory Mental workspace Capacity limitation that varies between individuals Catastrophic loss

Working memory performance as a function of age

Characteristics of children with poor working memory Poor academic progress Difficulties in following instructions Lose track in complex tasks Teachers say: short attention span and highly distractible

Characteristics of children with poor working memory 1. Poor academic progress More than 80% of children with poor working memory fail to achieve expected levels of attainment in either reading or maths, typically both (Gathercole & Alloway, 2008) 5 5

Characteristics of children with poor working memory 2. Difficulties in following instructions “Put your sheets on the green table, arrow cards in the packet, put your pencil away and come and sit on the carpet.” John (6 years) moved his sheets as requested, but failed to do anything else. When he realized that the rest of the class was seated on the carpet, he went and joined them, leaving his arrow cards and pencil on the table. 6 6

Characteristics of children with poor working memory 3. Lose track in complex tasks 7 7

Characteristics of children with poor working memory Poor academic progress Difficulties in following instructions Lose track in complex tasks 4. Teachers say: short attention span and highly distractible “he’s in a world of his own” “he doesn’t listen to a word I say” “she’s always day-dreaming” “with him, it’s in one ear and out of the other” 8 8

Symptoms displayed by children with poor working memory Often does not give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, work, or other activities. Often has trouble keeping attention on tasks or play activities. Often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly. Often does not follow instructions and fails to finish schoolwork, chores, or duties in the workplace. Often has trouble organizing activities. Often avoids, dislikes, or doesn't want to do things that take a lot of mental effort for a long period of time. Often loses things needed for tasks and activities. Is often easily distracted. Is often forgetful in daily activities. Gathercole & Alloway (2008), Gathercole, Alloway, Elliott, & Kirkwood (2008) 9

1: Classroom management Learning difficulties arise because memory loads of learning activities are often too high, leading to task failures and lost learning opportunities. Poor classroom performance can be ameliorated by avoiding working memory overload: Reduce amount of information to be stored Be prepared to re-present important information Encourage the use of memory aids Help the child to use strategies

2. Training WM Cogmed WM training (Pearson)

2. WM training

Does WM training ‘cure’ WM problems? No: training gains are limited. Indicates that the efficiency of the WM changed is not fundamentally changed by training Rather, strategies and skills developed that are highly specific to the training activities.

Working memory problems in many developmental disorders Reading difficulties/ dyslexia Maths difficulties/ dyscalculia Specific Language Impairment ADHD Genetic disorders – Downs, Williams, Fragile X

Working memory in reading difficulties and dyslexia Children with specific reading disorder or dyslexia experience difficulties in learning to read, despite sufficient intelligence and instruction. they also have poor skills in working memory .

Working memory in reading difficulties and dyslexia selective impairment of phonological loop (deficits in their capacity to store phonological information) but not of nonverbal material such as faces and pictures. Some studies showed impairment in storing and manipulating visual information impairment to process visually presented information in dyslexic individuals who learn to read in extreme opaque orthography (Hebrew) (Howes, Bigler, Lawson & Burligame, 1999).

Working memory in reading difficulties and dyslexia In languages with regular orthographies is acquired fast and easily through a direct letter-to-sound decoding. It is less well established whether the overall profile of skills across sub-components of working memory is equivalent in children with specific reading disability across different languages and orthographies.

Working memory in reading difficulties and dyslexia The primary interest in the present study is in the characteristic profile of working memory skills among Greek children with specific reading disorder.

Method Participants Twenty seven native Greek children (mean age = 9 years). Thirteen children (8 boys and 5 girls) who met the criteria for specific reading disorder. Fourteen children (10 boys and 4 girls) of typical development. They were not differ in chronological age t(25) = -.265, p = .793 either in years receiving formal education t(25) = .244, p = .809.

Method Assessments Reading ability Neale Analysis of Reading Ability (NARA II) (Neale, 1997) Working memory assessments Phonological Loop 1. Digit Recall 2. Nonword List recall Visuo-spatial sketchpad 1. Block Recall 2. Visual patterns Central executive 1. Counting Recall 2. Backward Digits Recall

Descriptive statistics and Univariate Analyses of Variance for group components as a function of reading ability and working memory skills

Results MANOVAS was conducted with reading, working memory tasks as the dependent measures and the two groups of children as a fixed factor

Memory task performance in both reading ability groups

Discussion impaired immediate phonological storage impaired processing of verbal information preserved ability to store visual information. a core verbal short term memory deficit that extends above and beyond language characteristics or educational systems