Information Processing and Memory 143
144 Helping Your Child with Language-Based Learning Disabilities
imagine the top of the hourglass is your short- term memory, sometimes called working memory. Any information we receive is first held in our short- term memory, the top of the hourglass. Over time, this informa-tion is transferred to our long- term memory, the bottom of the hourglass.
The space we have for short- term memory is limited. If we receive too much information too quickly, it is as if the top of the hourglass over-flows. The sand that spills over the sides is information that is lost. We need to receive information slowly enough to prevent overflowing.
You can help your child by carefully considering how much informa-tion he or she is capable of processing at any given time. This will help you gauge how much information you want to present to him or her. In addition, it’s also important to take pauses when delivering information in order to allow the information that’s being held in short- term memory to trickle into long- term memory.
Be alert to when your child has an aha moment. Then, wait a minute or two before moving on to a new concept so that your child can adequately cement what he or she just learned. If you present more infor-mation without a pause, everything that he or she has just grasped will
“spill out” of short- term memory. I call these critical pauses consolidation time because they provide a child time to consolidate what he or she is learning.
After an aha moment, it can sometimes be helpful to play a couple of games of tic- tac- toe or Go Fish, or engage in some other fun activity like drawing or putting together a puzzle. The time spent engaged in these activities is just what your child’s brain needs to process and store what he or she has just learned (Aamodt and Wang 2011).
Memory: What Goes in Needs to Come Out
When it comes to memory, the ability to store information is only half of the story. The other equally important half is retrieval. It is actu-ally the retrieval of information that strengthens our capacity to remember what was taught.
Some years ago, I came across an hourglass that was filled halfway with water and halfway with blue oil. I used this unique hourglass to illustrate another memory principle to my students. As we all know, oil
Information Processing and Memory 145
floats in water. Once the hourglass is flipped over, the oil appears to defy gravity and rise up from the bottom half, which represents long- term memory. The oil then flows into the top globe, which represents working (short- term) memory. It is this back- and- forth process of information going into long- term memory and then being retrieved and going into working memory that promotes memory. As a parent, you can systemati-cally reinforce this process of retrieval.
More than a century ago, German psychologist and memory expert Hermann Ebbinghaus studied the phenomenon of forgetting. He discov-ered that if someone is asked to retrieve information immediately after receiving it, the person is likely to accurately and completely retrieve that information. If there is a significant delay between receiving infor-mation and retrieving it, there tends to be a decrease in both the accu-racy and quantity of information that can be retrieved.
It is important to allow this phenomenon to inform your approach to helping your child better remember what he or she is taught. When you are teaching your child a new concept, systematically increase the amount of time between each retrieval of information. For example, provide your child with a definition of a word and then immediately ask him or her to repeat the definition. Then allow thirty seconds to elapse before again asking your child to recall the information. Then allow a minute or two to elapse, and again ask your child to recall the informa-tion. If your child provides the correct answer, stretch out the recall time to five or ten minutes, and then to thirty minutes or an hour. Build up the recall time to several hours and eventually a day or two. By system-atically increasing the amount of time between retrievals, you will improve your child’s memory of the concepts you are teaching. For a child with spoken language and visual processing delays, this method is essential because of inefficiencies he or she may experience in processing information as it comes in.
Motivation and Memory
Motivation expert Daniel Pink has identified three key ingredients of motivation: autonomy (a high degree of freedom and choice), purpose (knowing why something is being done), and mastery (being successful).
146 Helping Your Child with Language-Based Learning Disabilities
Leveraging these key ingredients when helping your child study and memorize information can make studying more productive.
You can promote your child’s autonomy by letting him or her choose the approach used to remember material. You can encourage your child’s sense of purpose by helping him or her appreciate why it’s important to remember the material. Help your child recognize the many ways he or she will benefit from making an effort to study and learn; if good grades incentivize your child, remind him or her how the extra effort can result in an improved grade. You can promote your child’s sense of mastery by working together in a proactive way, using the study tips throughout this book.