Memory Training: A Key to Overcoming Learning
Disabilities and Underachievement

Memory is the retention of information over time. Although the word memory may conjure up an image of a singular, "all-or-none" process, it is clear that there are actually many kinds of memory, each of which may be somewhat independent of the others. One way to describe memory is by reference to the form it takes, that is, the different ways memory may be assessed: recall, recognition, and paired associates.

The most popularly studied kind of memory is recall. Recollection of a telephone number you have just heard, a list of items you are to purchase at the store, or a list of dates you learned in history class are all examples of recall.

A second type of memory is recognition, which is generally easier than recall, for example a history teacher gives four dates and learners are to choose the one that goes with the specific historical event.

Another kind of memory is called paired associates. It is a person's ability to memorize a list of paired items, such as pictures and names, common objects and nonsense syllables, or words and corresponding visual scenes.

Memory as the Flow of Information

One prominent view conceives of memory as the flow of information through the mind. In a number of statements about this view, three broad stages of information processing can be distinguished. First, there is the sensory register, a very short-term sensory memory of the event. At the second level is a short-term, or working memory.

Roughly speaking, the sensory register concerns memories that last no more than about a second. If a line of print were flashed at you very rapidly, say, for one-tenth of a second, all the letters you can visualize for a brief moment after that presentation constitute the sensory register. This visualization disappears after a second.

When you are trying to recall a telephone number that was heard a few seconds earlier, the name of a person who has just been introduced, or the substance of the remarks just made by a teacher in class, you are calling on short-term memory, or working memory. This lasts from a few seconds to a minute; the exact amount of time may vary somewhat. You need this kind of memory to retain ideas and thoughts as you work on problems. In writing a letter, for example, you must be able to keep the last sentence in mind as you compose the next. To solve an arithmetic problem like (3 X 3) + (4 X 2) in your head, you need to keep the intermediate results in mind (i.e., 3 X 3 = 9) to be able to solve the entire problem.

Long-term memory lasts from a minute or so to weeks or even years. From long-term memory you can recall general information about the world that you learned on previous occasions, memory for specific past experiences, specific rules previously learned, and the like.

Learning Disabled Students and Underachievers Tend to Have Poor Memories

It is widely accepted that learning-disabled (LD) students have poor memories. In an article published in the Learning Disabilities Quarterly Scruggs and Mastropieri state, "One of the most commonly described characteristics of learning-disabled students is their failure to remember important information."

According to researchers from Durham University, who surveyed over three thousand children, children who underachieve at school may just have poor working memory rather than low intelligence. They found that ten percent of schoolchildren across all age ranges suffer from poor working memory seriously affecting their learning.

The researchers identified that poor working memory is rarely identified by teachers, who often describe children with this problem as inattentive or as having lower levels of intelligence.

Without appropriate intervention, poor working memory in children can affect long-term academic success into adulthood and prevent children from achieving their potential.

Improving Memory

For centuries it was believed that memory can be improved. The Greeks, and later the Romans, developed some of the most prodigious memories the civilized world has ever seen. Memory was ranked as one of the most important disciplines of oratory, a flourishing art at the time. They lived in an age with no paper, so people couldn't readily refer to notes. Speeches were committed to memory; lawyers depended on their memory in court; and poets, whose roles in society was paramount, regularly drew on their enormous powers of recall to recite long passages of verse.

The Greeks in general had a high level of literacy. Important texts were recorded on papyrus, and wax tablets were used to teach reading and writing in schools. Nevertheless, their culture remained a predominantly oral one.

While it is still accepted that it is the ability to recall to memory that makes learning possible, it is nowadays widely — and falsely — believed that memory cannot be improved. And those who believe that memory can be improved are ridiculed, writes Lyman in his book Making the Words Stand Still:

Perhaps that is why the role that memory training can play in preventing and overcoming learning disabilities is grossly underestimated.

In their article in the Learning Disabilities Quarterly Scruggs and Mastropieri evaluated the results of mnemonic instruction in learning disabilities intervention, and concluded, "mnemonic instruction delivers the greatest learning increases seen in the history of learning disabilities intervention research."

Defined in broad terms, a mnemonic is a device, procedure, or operation that is used to improve memory. Defined in narrow terms — and what Scruggs and Mastropieri mean by the word — a mnemonic is a specific reconstruction of target content intended to tie new information more closely to the learner's existing knowledge base and, therefore, facilitate retrieval. There are a variety of mnemonic techniques, including keywords, pegwords, acronyms, loci methods, spelling mnemonics, phonetic mnemonics, number-sound mnemonics, and Japanese "Yodai" methods. An example of an acronym is to remember the word HOMES to recall the names of the Great Lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior. The purpose of number-sound mnemonics is to recall strings of numbers, such as telephone numbers, addresses, locker combinations or historical dates. To use them, learners must first learn the number-sound relationships: 0=s; 1=t; 2=n; 3=m; 4=r; 5=l; 6=sh, ch, or soft g, 7=k, hard c, or hard g; 8=f or v; and 9=p. To remember the date 1439, for example, the learner uses the associated consonant sounds, t, r, m and p, and will insert vowels to create a meaningful word or words. In this case, the word "tramp" can be used. Spelling mnemonics is intended to help us remember the spelling of words. In order to remember that the word "cemetery" is spelled with three e's, for example, one can picture a lady screaming 'E-E-E' as she walks past the cemetery.

In their research Scruggs and Mastropieri synthesized the results of twenty-four experimental investigations of mnemonic instruction in special education settings. They found that the overall effect size of these combined investigations was 1.62 standard deviation units. According to them this was the highest measure of treatment effectiveness reported at the time. For comparison, Kavale and Forness reviewed previous quantitative syntheses of special education interventions, reporting overall effect sizes ranging from -0.12 to +0.58, for such interventions as reduced class size, special class placement, psycholinguistic training, perceptual-motor training, stimulant and psychotropic drugs, and diet interventions. Also compare Scruggs' and Mastropieri's finding with the overall size effect for systematic phonics instruction, reported by the National Reading Panel as 0.32 for LD children and 0.15 for low-achievers from 2nd to 6th grade.

Scruggs and Mastropieri demonstrate, first of all, that memory can be trained, and second, the importance of memory training in helping LD students. There are, however, at least two problems in improving memory by means of mnemonic instruction. The first problem is that it overlooks the sequential fashion of learning. Mnemonics instruction is, to a large extent, instruction in memory techniques, which should be taught only after the skill of memory has been learned. It can be compared to a person being taught soccer tactics, such as the "wall pass," while he has not yet adequately mastered the skill of passing the ball. As stated in Knowabout Soccer, "No matter how good your passing technique, if the quality of your passing is poor, your technique will not be effective." The second problem is that by teaching the student to use memory crutches, the result is, as Scruggs and Mastropieri acknowledge, "On more complex applications, generalization attempts have been less successful."

If the skill of memory is taught, however, the student can apply it in any situation.