Abstract
Working memory (WM) training has been increasingly popular in the last years. Previous studies have shown that individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) have low WM capacity and therefore would benefit by this type of intervention. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of WM and cognitive training for individuals with ID. The effects reported in previous studies have varied and therefore a meta-analysis of articles in the major databases was conducted. Inclusion criteria included to have a pretest–posttest design with a training group and a control group and to have measures of WM or short-term memory. Ten studies with 28 comparisons were included. The results reveal a significant, but small, overall pretest–posttest effect size (ES) for WM training for individuals with ID compared to controls. A mixed WM approach, including both verbal and visuo-spatial components working mainly on strategies, was the only significant training type with a medium ES. The most commonly reported training type, visuo-spatial WM training, was performed in 60 percent of the included comparisons and had a non-significant ES close to zero. We conclude that even if there is an overall effect of WM training, a mixed WM approach appears to cause this effect. Given the few studies included and the different characteristics of the included studies, interpretations should be done with caution. However, different types of interventions appear to have different effects. Even if the results were promising, more studies are needed to better understand how to design an effective WM intervention for this group and to understand if, and how, these short-term effects remain over time and transfer to everyday activities.
Highlights
Working memory (WM) has been defined as a system for the temporary holding and manipulation of information during the performance in a range of cognitive tasks (Baddeley, 1986)
This study shows that there was an overall significant effect of WM training for individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID)
An analysis of different types of training showed that only a mixed WM training approach, with both verbal and visuo-spatial components, had a significant effect size (ES)
Summary
Working memory (WM) has been defined as a system for the temporary holding and manipulation of information during the performance in a range of cognitive tasks (Baddeley, 1986). The critical role of WM in everyday life (e.g., reading, writing, arithmetic, learning, language-processing, orientation, imagination) and for individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) has been shown in an impressive number of studies (for a review, see Baddeley, 1986). One theoretical framework often used in research that assesses short-term memory (STM) and WM in individuals with ID, is Baddeley’s model (Baddeley and Hitch, 1974; Baddeley, 2000). The episodic buffer, added more recently to the model, is a multidimensional storage system that binds information from different sources in a unique code (Baddeley, 2000)
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