Childhood Working Memory Study

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Executive functioning skills are defined as a set of cognitive processes vital to the emerging self-regulation of performance and the development of social and cognitive ability in young children. Executive functioning begins to develop by the end of the first year, followed by significant developmental progression during the preschool years. Many argue that preschool tasks typically demand the use of three executive functioning skills: inhibitory control, attention shifting, and working memory (Weiland, Barata, & Yoshikawa, 2013). The purpose of the present study is to understand working memory in 4-year-olds and 6-year-olds using the backward digit span task. Working memory is defined as a brain system that provides temporary storage and manipulation of the information necessary for complex cognitive tasks such as learning and reasoning (Baddeley, 1992). Having a good working memory at the start of formal education is a powerful predictor of future academic success as it is essential for the development of higher-order cognitive capability. Working memory is thought to be vital in helping children learn specific educational skills such involving mathematics and reading comprehension (Mahy & Moses, 2011). The author measures 4-year-olds’…show more content…
Additional research has found patterning knowledge to be specifically related to working memory capacity in young children. Increased working-memory capacity is thought to allow 4- to 6-year-old children to transition from focusing on only one aspect of a task to coordinating attention across two dimensions. Enhanced capacity to consider and manipulate multiple pieces of information also likely improves children’s ability to identify and re-create patterns such as those presented when completing the backward digit task. (Rittle-Johnson et al.,

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