Published: February 28, 2008
Children who under-achieve at school may just have poor working memory rather than low intelligence according to researchers who have produced the world’s first tool to assess memory capacity in the classroom.
The researchers from Durham University, who surveyed over three thousand children, found that ten per cent of school children across all age ranges suffer from poor working memory seriously affecting their learning. Nationally, this equates to almost half a million children in primary education alone being affected.
However, 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.
The new tool, a combination of a checklist and computer programme informed by several years of concentrated research into poor working memory in children, will for the first time enable teachers to identify and assess children’s memory capacity in the classroom from as early as four years old.
The researchers believe this early assessment of children will enable teachers to adopt new approaches to teaching, thus helping to address the problem of under-achievement in schools. [continue reading…]
Published: February 20, 2008
Study shows when kids’ actions reflect their awareness that some outcomes are worth chasing more than others
Hang on, parents. After the terrible twos come the goal-oriented threes. Kids seem to grow into the ability to act in pursuit of goals outside of what they can immediately sense sometime around that age, according to a new study published in the February issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, published by the American Psychological Association (APA). [continue reading…]
Published: February 20, 2008
How does a child learn to speak? How is a tiny arm-waving package transformed in a few years into a seasoned conversationalist who knows how to change register and put itself in its friend’s shoes?
In the beginning is the cry: a keening, ear-splitting wail of alarm that sometimes develops into a rasping growl howl. The mother responds to the alarm, just as she is supposed to. Parents caring for their firstborn discover their inner Bruce Willis, rushing to the rescue, easier than anyone would ever have believed, because if the crying doesn’t stop, the world will come to an end. It takes years before the cry of a baby, any baby, stops catapulting them into alert mode. [continue reading…]
