Special Needs: What Is Memory?

By Rachel Speal
Memory plays a critical role in all areas of life. At home, school, and at play, a person's ability to remember what they hear or see can dramatically affect their lives.

In order to understand why this is so, let's take a look at the different types of memory and what role they play in learning. The first type of memory is called short-term memory, and is sometimes called "learning's front entrance." This is because anything that we hear or see must first pass through short-term memory. Then the mind has just a few seconds to decide what to do with the information. Can we use this information right now, or does it need to be filed away for later? Perhaps it is something we don't need at all.

Short-term memory by necessity is very short, since it must process the torrent of data competing for space in our minds. Sometimes it happens that different types of material are processed less efficiently than others. Thus, a child may have a problem with information presented verbally, visually, or sequentially- or all of them combined.

A child can also have difficulty with recoding. Most information that comes into the brain cannot be remembered in its entirety. If a teacher tells his class what page in social studies they have to review for the next day, and also talks about what tomorrow's schedule will be, it would be very difficult (and inefficient) to remember every single word he says.

Children must therefore be able to extract the most important information out of what they hear or see. For some children, this ability to paraphrase is very difficult. However, being able to paraphrase information is a crucial skill in learning, so this could seriously hamper a child's success in school.

The next type of memory is active working memory. Active working memory is involved in four specific areas. Firstly, it provides the mind space for the combining or developing of ideas. An example of this would be remembering what is at the top of a page by the time you get to the bottom of the page. Secondly, it helps you hold together the parts of a task while engaged in that task. This helps you remember, for example, where you put the screwdriver down before you grabbed the hammer.

The third area that active working memory is involved in is similar to the notepad function on your computer: it acts as a meeting place where short-term memory can work together with long-term memory. Just as you can place a picture on your notepad and then paste it into a document, active working memory helps you remember the question asked by your best friend while searching for the answer.

The last area active working memory plays a role is in holding multiple immediate plans and intentions in one place. For example, it helps you remember to pick up more milk from the grocery on your way back from the hardware store.

A moderate weakness in short-term memory can make it difficult to remember basic math facts. It can also make registering procedures and sequences necessary for multi-step processes (such as division) seem like an exercise in futility. Insufficient active-working memory is also at fault when a child loses track of what they were doing in the middle of a math problem.

The third type of memory, long-term memory, is also important. It is equivalent to the hard drive on a computer; all the information one has ever inputted is present- if you can remember how to access it. For some children, small chunk-size capacity can affect long-term memory specifically in expressive fluency. Expressive fluency is the ability to express oneself either in speech or in writing. It is critical for class participation, as well as being able to restate in more compact terms material presented by the teacher or read in a textbook.

When children first enter school, most of their energies are spent on mastering basic skills-reading, writing, and arithmetic. However, once children reach third grade, they are expected to have mastered these basic skills. Emphasis is now placed on using those skills to acquire increasingly larger volumes of material. In order to be successful, a child must learn how to take in and work with these steadily growing amounts of data.

Chunk size, or the amount of material that a child can take in at one time, has an effect on all types of memory: short-term, active-working memory, and long-term memory. When a child has difficulty with the amount of information he can hold in his memory it is known as small chunk-size capacity.

Small chunk-size capacity can be likened to a water pitcher: if the pitcher is one liter, then a lot more cups can be filled up. However a half-liter pitcher means that you would be stuck running to fill up the pitcher more often. Practically this means that it would be harder for a child to carry out the various other memory functions that depend on chunk-size capacity.

Most people assume that having a good memory is similar to musical genius: you either have it or you don't. Research has shown, however, that this is not true. Although one person can be born with a better memory than another, memory (like other brain functions) is more akin to a muscle that gets the right kind of exercise.

The right kinds of exercises as well as supplements -often called "brain food" can improve your memory significantly. This is in fact the basis of many rehabilitation programs for patients with memory dysfunction due to brain injury or other causes. In short, if you are told that your child suffers from weak memory dysfunction, don't accept that this is the way your child must remain. It is possible to boost his memory and make a significant difference in your child's life.