Short-term Memory In Children Research Articles

Spatial Short-Term Memory in Children With Nonverbal Learning Disabilities: Impairment in Encoding Spatial Configuration

ABSTRACT The authors investigated whether impaired spatial short-term memory exhibited by children with nonverbal learning disabilities is due to a problem in the encoding process. Children with or without nonverbal learning disabilities performed a simple spatial test that required them to remember 3, 5, or 7 spatial items presented simultaneously in random positions (i.e., spatial configuration) and to decide if a target item was changed or all items including the target were in the same position. The results showed that, even when the spatial positions in the encoding and probe phases were similar, the mean proportion correct of children with nonverbal learning disabilities was 0.58 while that of children without nonverbal learning disabilities was 0.84. The authors argue with the results that children with nonverbal learning disabilities have difficulty encoding relational information between spatial items, and that this difficulty is responsible for their impaired spatial short-term memory.

Intimate partner violence and children’s memory.

The current study was designed to examine the relation between intimate partner violence (IPV) and children's memory and drew from a socioeconomically and racially diverse sample of children living in and around a midsized southeastern city (n = 140). Mother-reported IPV when the children were 30 months old was a significant predictor of children's short-term, working, and deliberate memory at 60 months of age, even after controlling for the children's sex and race, the families' income-to-needs ratio, the children's expressive vocabulary, and maternal harsh-intrusive parenting behaviors. These findings add to the limited extant literature that finds linkages between IPV and children's cognitive functioning and suggest that living in households in which physical violence is perpetrated among intimate partners may have a negative effect on multiple domains of children's memory development.

Phonological, visual, and semantic coding strategies and children's short-term picture memory span

Three experiments addressed controversies in the previous literature on the development of phonological and other forms of short-term memory coding in children, using assessments of picture memory span that ruled out potentially confounding effects of verbal input and output. Picture materials were varied in terms of phonological similarity, visual similarity, semantic similarity, and word length. Older children (6/8-year-olds), but not younger children (4/5-year-olds), demonstrated robust and consistent phonological similarity and word length effects, indicating that they were using phonological coding strategies. This confirmed findings initially reported by Conrad (1971), but subsequently questioned by other authors. However, in contrast to some previous research, little evidence was found for a distinct visual coding stage at 4 years, casting doubt on assumptions that this is a developmental stage that consistently precedes phonological coding. There was some evidence for a dual visual and phonological coding stage prior to exclusive use of phonological coding at around 5-6 years. Evidence for semantic similarity effects was limited, suggesting that semantic coding is not a key method by which young children recall lists of pictures.

The Impact of Visual Complexity on Visual Short-Term Memory in Children with Specific Language Impairment

Many studies have assessed visual short-term memory (VSTM) abilities in children with specific language impairment (SLI), with contrasting results: some studies observed preserved VSTM capacities, while others reported impaired VSTM. The present study explores the hypothesis that the complexity of the visual information to be encoded and stored might underlie these discrepancies. Four VSTM conditions were administered to a group of 15 children with SLI, as well as to two groups of typically developing children, matched for chronological age and for VSTM capacity for visually simple stimuli, respectively. The stimuli to be remembered varied in their visual similarity and in the number of their visual features. Across the four VSTM conditions, children with SLI showed significantly reduced performance relative to an age-matched control group, and they were more strongly affected by visual similarity and number of features when compared to a control group matched for VSTM capacity for visually simple stimuli. The present results support the hypothesis that stimulus complexity is a determining factor of the poor VSTM performances in children with SLI.

Phonological and Visuospatial Short-Term Memory in Children With Specific Language Impairment

An investigation was carried out into the phonological short-term memory (PSTM) and visuospatial short-term memory (VSSTM) skills of children with specific language impairment (SLI; n = 41) using memory span tasks. Individuals with SLI were compared with children who had milder degrees of language difficulty (“low language functioning” [LLF]; n = 31) and children with typical development (n = 88). Regression analyses examined the effects of group after controlling for age and nonverbal IQ; further regressions included an additional control for verbal IQ. Even after controlling for all of these variables, children with SLI and LLF showed significantly weaker PSTM than children with typical development. For VSSTM, there were no overall group differences in performance. The findings imply that the PSTM difficulties that have been reported in children with SLI are substantial, whereas VSSTM appears to be an area of relative strength for most children with SLI.

820-5-6 Spatial short-term memory in children with visuospatial learning disabilities : Impairment in encoding spatial configuration

820-5-6 Spatial short-term memory in children with visuospatial learning disabilities : Impairment in encoding spatial configuration

Effect of iron and zinc deficiency on short term memory in children

To evaluate the effect of iron and zinc deficiency on short term memory of children in the age group of 6-11 years and to assess the response to supplementation therapy. Interventional study. 100 children in the age group of 6-11 years (subdivided into 6-8 yr and 9-11 yr groups) from an urban corporation school. After collection of demographic data, the study children underwent hematological assessment which included serum iron, serum zinc, and hemoglobin estimation. Based on the results, they were divided into Iron deficient, Zinc deficient, and Combined deficiency groups. Verbal and nonverbal memory assessment was done in all the children. Iron (2mg/kg bodyweight in two divided doses) and zinc (5mg once-a-day) supplementation for a period of 3 months for children in the deficient group. All children with iron and zinc deficiency in both the age groups had memory deficits. Combined deficiency in 9-11 years group showed severe degree of affectation in verbal (P<0.01) and non-verbal memory (P<0.01), and improved after supplementation (P = 0.05 and P< 0.01, respectively). In 6-8 years group, only non-verbal form of memory (P =0.02) was affected, which improved after supplementation. Iron and zinc deficiency is associated with memory deficits in children. There is a marked improvement in memory after supplementation. Post supplementation IQ scores do not show significant improvement in deficient groups in 6-8 year olds.

Ereigniskorrelierte Potenziale und auditives sensorisches Gedächtnis

Deficits in auditory short-term memory are thought to underlie developmental language disorders and dyslexia. There is, however, a lack of systematic studies of short-term memory in children at a young age. The aim of this study was to probe the duration of auditory sensory memory using objective methods in young children. 37 two-year-old and 52 six-year-old normally developing children were included in the study. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were elicited in a passive auditory oddball paradigm with variable interstimulus intervals (ISIs of 0.5-5 s, depending on the subgroup). For shorter ISIs, a prominent mismatch negativity (MMN) and late discriminative negativity (LDN) were found, while a distinct P3a occurred particularly for longer ISIs. Statistical significance was proven for the dependence of MMN and LDN amplitudes on the ISI. The change in the structure of the ERP components occurred at a longer ISI for the six-year-olds than for the 2-year-olds. The points where MMN and LDN disappear with increasing ISI suggest that the duration of auditory sensory memory lies between 1 and 2 s in two-year-old children and between 3 and 5 s in six-year-olds. The occurrence of a P3a beyond the point where MMN and LDN can no longer be elicited, however, provides evidence that several different mechanisms with different durations of memory representations are involved in short-term storage of auditory information.

Verbal and Visual Short-Term Memory in Children with Arithmetic Disabilities

With the exception of the explication of the Nonverbal Learning Disability Syndrome, our knowledge of cognitive characteristics of children with isolated arithmetic (A) disabilities contrasted with those with comorbid arithmetic and reading (AR) disabilities is limited. Of the existing studies, most suggest that visual deficits are characteristic of Subtype A. This study examined short-term memory in 45 children who were classified into these two subtypes. Children in Subtype A displayed better verbal memory on some tasks than children in the AR subtype, but no subtype differences in visual memory were found. Counter to our hypothesis, children in Subtype A did not display relatively poorer visual memory than verbal memory. These results suggest a mixed neuropsychological profile, and the absence of visual short-term memory weaknesses as descriptive of the A subtype.

Multicomponent attention deficits in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

The aim of this study was to examine the specific aspects of attention, such as selective attention, sustained attention, and short-term memory in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, combined subtype (ADHD-C). A total of 40 children with a diagnosis of ADHD from the 4th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, aged 6-11 years old were compared with 40 controls matched for age and gender on a battery of tests. Short-term memory span and attention was measured by Visual Aural Digit Span Test-Revised. Stroop test and the Turkish version of Cancellation Test were used to assess selective and sustained attention, respectively. In order to check for factor structure in two groups on the test scores, principal component analysis was conducted for both groups separately. Relative to the comparison children, children with ADHD showed significant deficits on tests that are related to different aspects of attention. The results are consistent with the theories explaining the biological basis of ADHD by scattered attention networks in the brain, which have reciprocal dynamic interactions. Further comparative studies are needed to elucidate whether the cognitive processes that are known to be assessed by these tests are specific to ADHD.

Short-term memory and vocabulary development in children with Down syndrome and children with specific language impairment

A longitudinal comparison was made between development of verbal and visuo-spatial short-term memory and vocabulary in children with Down syndrome (DS), children with specific language impairment (SLI), and typically developing children as a control group. Participants were 12 children with DS (6 males, 6 females; mean chronological age 9y 9mo [SD 2.8mo], range 8y 6mo to 11y 4mo); nine children with SLI (4 males, 5 females; mean chronological age 3y 9mo [SD 4.8mo], range 3y 3mo to 4y 5mo); and 12 typically developing children (5 males, 7 females; mean chronological age 4y 4mo [SD 3.9mo], range 3y 3mo to 4y 3mo). Participants were matched on mental age (mean mental age 4y 3mo). All participants completed verbal short-term memory, visuo-spatial short-term memory, and expressive and receptive vocabulary tasks on three occasions over 1 year. Similarities were seen in the clinical groups for verbal short-term memory. There was some evidence of difficulty in visuo-spatial short-term memory in the children with SLI relative to the other groups, but all three groups showed overlap in visuo-spatial short-term memory performance. At the final time-point vocabulary performance in the clinical groups was similar; the typically developing children showed higher vocabulary abilities than both clinical groups.

Beyond words: Phonological short-term memory and syntactic impairment in specific language impairment

The assessment of nonword repetition in children goes back at least to 1974, when the Goldman–Fristoe–Woodcock Auditory Skills Battery was published, including a subtest (Sound Mimicry) assessing nonword repetition (Goldman, Fristoe, &amp; Woodcock, 1974). Nevertheless, it was not until 20 years later, when Gathercole and Baddeley (1990) reported a study of short-term memory in children with specific language impairment (SLI), that a theoretical framework was developed linking deficits in nonword repetition to impaired language acquisition. Gathercole's Keynote in this issue (2006) tells the story of how this initial study revealed a striking nonword repetition deficit in children with SLI, complementing work on typically developing children showing a major role of phonological short-term memory (STM) in word learning. As she points out, the story is a complex one: phonological STM is not the only skill tapped by the nonword repetition task, and children may do poorly for different reasons. Furthermore, relationships between nonword repetition and word learning may be reciprocal, with vocabulary level affecting children's ability to segment nonwords efficiently and retain them in memory. However, the original finding, that deficient nonword repetition is a strong correlate of SLI, has stood the test of time, to the extent that poor performance on this test has been used successfully as a marker of a heritable phenotype in molecular genetic studies of SLI (Newbury, Monaco, &amp; Bishop, 2005).

Short-term memory in children with sickle cell disease: Executive versus modality-specific processing deficits

Prior research has identified a number of areas of cognitive deficit among children with sickle cell disease (SCD), including decrements in memory span and working memory. The present study examined short-term memory span and working memory performance among children with SCD ( n = 25) and demographically matched comparison children ( n = 25) using digit span, spatial span, and the self-ordered pointing test. Children with SCD showed difficulties only for digit span-backward. Additional cognitive ability measures administered indicated auditory processing was an area of deficit related to digit span-backward performance. The study suggests that modality specific deficits are one factor in short-term memory span for children with SCD. The cause of this deficit is unclear, but may involve both central and peripheral components of auditory processing.

Short-term memory and vocabulary development in children with Down syndrome and children with specific language impairment

A longitudinal comparison was made between development of verbal and visuo-spatial short-term memory and vocabulary in children with Down syndrome (DS), children with specific language impairment (SLI), and typically developing children as a control group. Participants were 12 children with DS (6 males, 6 females; mean chronological age 9y 9mo [SD 2.8 mo], range 8y 6mo to 11y 4mo); nine children with SLI (4 males, 5 females; mean chronological age 3y 9mo [SD 4.8mo], range 3y 3mo to 4y 5mo); and 12 typically developing children (5 males, 7 females; mean chronological age 4y 4mo [SD 3.9mo], range 3y 3mo to 4y 3mo). Participants were matched on mental age (mean mental age 4y 3mo). All participants completed verbal short-term memory, visuo-spatial short-term memory, and expressive and receptive vocabulary tasks on three occasions over 1 year. Similarities were seen in the clinical groups for verbal short-term memory. There was some evidence of difficulty in visuo-spatial short-term memory in the children with SLI relative to the other groups, but all three groups showed overlap in visuo-spatial short-term memory performance. At the final time-point vocabulary performance in the clinical groups was similar; the typically developing children showed higher vocabulary abilities than both clinical groups.

Physiological reactivity, social support, and memory in early childhood.

The interactive effects of physiological reactivity and social support on children's memory were examined. Four- to 6-year-olds completed a laboratory protocol during which autonomic responses and salivary cortisol were measured. Memory was assessed shortly afterward and 2 weeks later. During the second interview, children were questioned by a supportive or nonsupportive interviewer. Few significant relations emerged between reactivity and children's short-term memory. Following a 2-week delay, cortisol reactivity was associated with poorer memory and autonomic reactivity was associated with increased accuracy among children questioned in a supportive manner but decreased accuracy among children questioned in a nonsupportive manner. Results question traditional conceptualizations of reactivity as a risk factor and instead suggest that reactivity may only confer risk in certain environmental contexts.

Memory development and intellectual disabilities

Neuropsychological research has permitted different cognitive profiles among subjects with intellectual disabilities (ID) of different etiology to be defined. For example, numerous authors have stressed that the typical language profile for people with Down's syndrome (DS) consists of poor production with greater compromise of morphosyntax than of lexical abilities, but relatively preserved comprehension. Children with Williams' syndrome (WS) often show marked impairment in certain visuospatial abilities (especially praxic-constructive) and relative preservation of both productive and receptive language, at least concerning the phonological elements. These observations seem to support a theoretical approach that considers ID not as a mere slowing of normal cognitive development, but as distinct, individual profiles that can be qualitatively specified. The importance of this approach was shown in several recent studies of memory, especially implicit memory in subjects with ID. Neuropsychological studies suggest insufficient development of the mnemic function in ID at different levels of articulation. Long-term memory has been extensively investigated in people with ID both in the explicit and in the implicit component. According to recent studies, people with ID should show a diffuse impairment of declarative mnesic abilities and a relative preservation of implicit memory. The focus of this study is on the characteristics of long- and short-term memory in children with ID and, particularly, with DS and WS. The results are relevant to knowledge on the qualitative aspects of the anomalous cognitive development in mentally retarded people and the neurobiological substrate underlying this development.

Memory development and intellectual disabilities.

Neuropsychological research has permitted different cognitive profiles among subjects with intellectual disabilities (ID) of different etiology to be defined. For example, numerous authors have stressed that the typical language profile for people with Down's syndrome (DS) consists of poor production with greater compromise of morphosyntax than of lexical abilities, but relatively preserved comprehension. Children with Williams' syndrome (WS) often show marked impairment in certain visuospatial abilities (especially praxic-constructive) and relative preservation of both productive and receptive language, at least concerning the phonological elements. These observations seem to support a theoretical approach that considers ID not as a mere slowing of normal cognitive development, but as distinct, individual profiles that can be qualitatively specified. The importance of this approach was shown in several recent studies of memory, especially implicit memory in subjects with ID. Neuropsychological studies suggest insufficient development of the mnemic function in ID at different levels of articulation. Long-term memory has been extensively investigated in people with ID both in the explicit and in the implicit component. According to recent studies, people with ID should show a diffuse impairment of declarative mnesic abilities and a relative preservation of implicit memory. The focus of this study is on the characteristics of long- and short-term memory in children with ID and, particularly, with DS and WS. The results are relevant to knowledge on the qualitative aspects of the anomalous cognitive development in mentally retarded people and the neurobiological substrate underlying this development.

Long‐term memory effects on verbal short‐term memory: A replication study

The influence of lexico‐semantic language representations stored in long‐term memory (LTM) on short‐term memory (STM) performance has been studied extensively in adults. However, there are relatively few data on lexico‐semantic LTM effects on STM in children. On the other hand, the influence of phonological LTM effects on STM has been studied more extensively in children than in adults. In this study, we explored whether these different LTM effects on verbal STM could be replicated in both adults and children by administering immediate serial recall tasks (ISR) for high‐ and lowfrequency words, for high‐ and low‐imageability words, for words and non‐words, and for high and low phonotactic frequency non‐words to 6‐, 8‐, and 10‐year‐old children, to adolescents and to adults. Significant word frequency, lexicality and phonotactic frequency effects were observed in all age groups, as well as a word imageability effect which was, however, weaker than the other three effects. Our data suggest that LTM effects on STM are equivalent in both children and adults.

Word-length effect in verbal short-term memory in individuals with Down's syndrome.

Many studies have indicated that individuals with Down's syndrome (DS) show a specific deficit in short-term memory for verbal information. The aim of the present study was to investigate the influence of the length of words on verbal short-term memory in individuals with DS. Twenty-eight children with DS and 10 control participants matched for memory span were tested on verbal serial recall and speech rate, which are thought to involve rehearsal and output speed. Although a significant word-length effect was observed in both groups for the recall of a larger number of items with a shorter spoken duration than for those with a longer spoken duration, the number of correct recalls in the group with DS was reduced compared to the control subjects. The results demonstrating poor short-term memory in children with DS were irrelevant to speech rate. In addition, the proportion of repetition-gained errors in serial recall was higher in children with DS than in control subjects. The present findings suggest that poor access to long-term lexical knowledge, rather than overt articulation speed, constrains verbal short-term memory functions in individuals with DS.

Short-term memory of children with and without characteristics of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

The effects of verbal interference and strategy instruction on recall of visual and auditory material were assessed in children with and without attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD). Children were randomly assigned to a strategy instruction or to a control group and (a) completed two sets (four administrations) of the Learning Efficiency Test (LET)-II, (b) a self-report measure of ‘task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs),’ and (c) an incidental sentence recall task. Recall of both visual and auditory material was greater for those children who received strategy instruction and when there was no added interference. Poor memory and failure to filter incoming stimulation were not supported as explanations of AD/HD under the conditions of this study.