Working memory in learning disability subgroups.

H L Swanson

doi:10.1006/jecp.1993.1027

Home/Archive/PubMed

PubMed · 8366327

Working memory in learning disability subgroups.

H L Swanson

View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate (a) the degree to which working memory differences between learning-disabled and nondisabled children reflect a specific or generalized deficit, and (b) whether limitations in the enhancement of learning-disabled student's working memory performance are attributable to process or storage functions. To this end, performances of reading-disabled, math-disabled, chronological age (CA)-matched, and achievement-matched children were compared on verbal and visual-spatial working memory measures under initial, gain, and maintenance conditions. The results indicated that: (a) learning-disabled subtypes were not differentiated by their performance on verbal and visual-spatial working memory measures; and (b) learning-disabled children's working memory performance was inferior to CA-matched and superior to achievement-matched counterparts across initial, gain, and maintenance conditions. The results suggest that learning-disabled children suffer generalized working memory deficits, possibly due to storage constraints in the executive system.

Explore related subjects

Attention Child Dyslexia Female Humans Learning Disabilities Male Mathematics Mental Recall Orientation Paired-Associate Learning Pattern Recognition, Visual Problem Solving Retention, Psychology Serial Learning Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeX RIS

H L Swanson. 1993. Working memory in learning disability subgroups.. https://doi.org/10.1006/jecp.1993.1027

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related citations

PubMed1996

Where in the brain does visual attention select the forest and the trees?

The perceptual world is organized hierarchically: the forest consists of trees, which in turn have leaves. Visual attention can emphasize the overall picture (global form) or the focal details of a scene (local components). Neuropsychological studies have indicated that the left hemisphere is biased towards local and the right towards global processing. The underlying attentional and perceptual mechanisms are maximally impaired by unilateral lesions to the temporal and parietal cortex. We measured brain activity of normal subjects during two experiments using 'hierarchically' organized figures. In a directed attention task, early visual processing (prestriate) areas were activated: attention to the global aspect of the figures activated the right lingual gyrus whereas locally directed attention activated the left inferior occipital cortex. In a subsequent divided attention task, the number of target switches from local to global (and vice versa) covaried with temporal-parietal activation. The findings provide direct evidence for hemispheric specialization in global and local perception; furthermore, they indicate that temporal-parietal areas exert attentional control over the neural transformations occurring in prestriate cortex.

Attention↗

PubMed1996

Enhancement of selective listening by illusory mislocation of speech sounds due to lip-reading.

Mechanisms of human attention allow selective processing of just the relevant events among the many stimuli bombarding our senses. Most laboratory studies examine attention within just a single sense, but in the real world many important events are specified multimodally, as in verbal communication. Speech comprises visual lip movements as well as sounds, and lip-reading contributes to speech perception, even for listeners with good hearing, by a process of audiovisual integration. Such examples raise the problem of how we coordinate our spatial attention across the sensory modalities, to select sights and sounds from a common source for further processing. Here we show that this problem is alleviated by allowing some cross-modal matching before attentional selection is completed. Cross-modal matching can lead to an illusion, whereby sounds are mislocated at their apparent visual source; this crossmodal illusion can enhance selective spatial attention to speech sounds.

Attention↗

PubMed1996

Neurobehavioral profiles of children with neurofibromatosis 1 referred for learning disabilities are sex-specific.

We compared neurobehavioral profiles of 10 children with neurofibromatosis 1 (NF-1) referred for evaluation of learning disabilities (NF/LD) to those to learning disabled children without known genetic disease (LD), matched for age, sex, and estimated IQ. It was hypothesized that the NF/LD children would exhibit a neurobehavioral profile diagnostic of compromise of frontal/subcortical brain systems while those of the case controls would be heterogeneous. Records from a clinical data base were reviewed retrospectively for the neurological and neuropsychological components of an interdisciplinary learning disabilities evaluation. Neurological abnormalities were more frequent in the NF/LD group, involving gross and fine motor coordination, praxis, and megencephaly. As predicted, clinical neuropsychological diagnostic ratings and composite neurobehavioral observation scores were consistent with compromise of frontal systems in the NF/LD group. An unanticipated finding was that outcomes in the NF/LD group were sex dependent: Megencephaly was observed in females only; and the frontal/subcortical neurobehavioral profile was more consistently observed in females. Females with NF-1 with megencephaly may be at increased risk for a neurobehavioral syndrome contributing to LD that is consistent with compromise of frontal/subcortical brain systems.

Attention↗