Short-term Memory – A Necessary Learning Skill
I recently met with a mom and her 16 year old son, Josh, who was really struggling in school, was frustrated and had poor grades. We assessed Josh and all of his skills – long-term memory, logic, processing speed, visual & auditory processing were in the 90th percentile or above. He was incredibly smart.
If that’s the case, then why was he performing at such a low level academically? The answer lies in his short-term memory weakness which was only in the 2nd percentile. The result? Josh struggled to complete his work, didn’t remember homework assignments or if he had turned them in, made careless mistakes on his tests, struggled to hold and get his thoughts on paper for writing assignments and had a huge frustration level due to these struggles. His mom has been hearing for years, “Your son is so smart, he just needs to apply himself.”
In meeting with Josh, it was clear that he really cared about his school performance and wanted to do well. This area of weakness was just constantly tripping him up.
Short-term memory, our ability to hold information in our mind while completing a task, is one of the most important skills for learners and puts students at a significant disadvantage if it’s not strong.
Watch as we explain what short-term memory is and demonstrate some of the ways we work to improve it at LearningRx.
