Her teacher concluded with “a program of incentives to help [Yehudis] overcome her mental laziness, and her inclination to duck scholastic challenges.”

The problem with this evaluation was not its description of Yehudis's academic performance, which was essentially on target, but the damage it did by labeling and blaming Yehudis for doing substandard work.

In fact, Yehudis was suffering from a form of short-term memory dysfunction. She was not at all lazy. Repeated failure and criticism from her teachers had destroyed her confidence and much of her enthusiasm for school, but she had still not thrown in the towel. She still believed that in spite of being ‘dumb,' she would do well if only she tried harder, as everyone kept telling her.

Yehudis exhibited some of the classic symptoms indicative of short-term memory dysfunction, such as weak mental energy in processing and registering new information, and a failure to use strategies when trying to register new material. These strategies include repeating or whispering under one's breath, and visualizing and linking new information to that which is already known.

She also exhibited confusion with multi-step directions and poor ability to paraphrase or summarize, a necessary tool for breaking information down into units small enough to be memorized.

Yehudis had outbursts of temper and irritation at home when she had homework assignments that involved memorization. “The house is in turmoil the night before Yehudis has a test,” her mother told me. “She'll get into quarrels with her siblings. She'll end up crying and staying up way past her bedtime because she has pushed off the studying she knows she has to do.”

In spite of the hours she spent on the work, the following day Yehudis invariably recalled only a small part of what she had studied. Her poor test results had a demoralizing effect on her, making her feel she was too ‘stupid' to learn.

One of the first steps in counteracting this devastating cycle was to teach Yehudis about her memory problem, and to separate that issue from her overall intelligence. A person's memory is like a muscle, she learned. Just as muscles need a variety of exercises to develop, different memory functions need specialized exercises to stimulate their development.

Tips for Boosting Memory
Yehudis learned special exercises to strengthen and stimulate her memory, and to find ways to circumvent memory dysfunction. Some of these involved special tactics known as “rehearsal” strategies. These include the previously mentioned whispering under one's breath and visualizing, along with making up rhymes, stories, acronyms or other mnemonics to represent what one is attempting to register.

Rhyming turned out to be one of the most effective tools for her. For example, to jog her memory when trying to master vocabulary words, she came up with the following rhymes: “If you can't come on time, you'll have to resign;” “Her behavior was perverse, it kept getting worse;” “If you exaggerate, you won't graduate;” “I asked you to facilitate, not complicate."

She learned to apply other strategies to the task of registering information more deeply in the mind. When learning the names of important historical figures or studying geography, she made up songs, linking the names she had to remember to something familiar that the names made her think of. This not only proved very helpful, it also introduced comic relief into the study session, since the memory boosters she came up with were often quite funny.

When it came to mathematical concepts and computation, visualizing and storytelling were most effective in breaking down the information into smaller units. A game of “store” enabling Yehudis to purchase an item if she could figure out its sale price after computing “30% off the original price,” or solving other word problems, turned out to be a major incentive. She learned to use scrap paper to write out all the steps, to counter the tendency to lose her place or forget what she was doing in the midst of problem solving.

Be Creative!
Parents of children like Yehudis should tap their own creativity in helping their children improve certain skills that will strengthen short-term memory. In addition to the strategies described above, practicing paraphrasing skills at home is of tremendous benefit. Having a child retell a chapter or section of a book she has read or a story she has heard, is an excellent vehicle for sharpening summarizing skills. Paraphrasing binds the information into memory with greater permanence.

Not all summarization needs to be verbal. The child can make a diagram, a chart or pictures. She may also find speaking into a tape recorder and playing it back to herself helpful, especially as this activity triggers the child's own self-evaluation and self-checking skills. Another useful aid is encouraging a child to highlight, asterisk or underline key words and information, as well as to jot down notes in the book's margin.

Parents must realize that children with limited short-term memory may not retain instructions. They need to keep such input short, offer repetition without being critical and always ask the child to repeat the instructions.

As they grow older, advises Dr. Levine, children who have problems in this area need to keep lists and take good notes in order to relieve the burden on limited short-term memory. The invention of the palm pilot has been a priceless tool for both children and adults grappling with memory weakness.

Labels like “lazy,” “not trying hard enough,” and “not taking the work seriously,” should be avoided; they are not only nonproductive, but also unfair. No one who is blessed with a normal, well-functioning memory can understand the frustration memory dysfunction causes those who struggle with it. Nor can the average person appreciate the far greater degree of mental energy demanded of someone with limited short-term memory, for tasks that come easily to the average person.

New studies and ongoing research are opening fascinating windows into the complex dynamics of human memory. Fortunately, we are moving away from the misconceptions and judgmental attitudes that too often stigmatized children with memory dysfunction.

By working together and patiently employing tried and tested strategies, parents and teachers can help these children master skills that will be invaluable throughout life. As a delighted Yehudis discovered over a period of months, children with memory dysfunction can acquire the tools to reverse their failure, rebuild self-esteem and achieve goals once thought impossible.

Written by: Rivka Schonfeld