Visual Abstract

Training of Working Memory in Children With ADHD

Torkel Klingberg , Hans Forssberg, Helena Westerberg

Summarized by:

Charles Li, MD

June 20, 2023

study source

J Clin Exp Neuropsychol

Sept 2002

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What they studied

Researchers wanted to examine whether practice and training could improve working memory for children with ADHD.

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What they found

Children who were provided with training significantly improved their working memory and reasoning skills.

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What this means

For children who struggle with cognitive tasks, training and practice may lead to improvements.

Training of Working Memory in Children With ADHD

Objectives

ADHD can affect more than just hyperactivity and attention. It can also affect our cognition and the way we think. One of the most significant ways it affects us is in our working memory.

Working memory refers to the small amount of memory we use when performing a task.

What is working memory?

This study wanted to see whether practice and training could improve working memory in children with ADHD.

Study Quote

Klingberg et al. 2002

Working memory (WM) capacity is the ability to retain and manipulate information during a short period of time. This ability underlies complex reasoning and has generally been regarded as a fixed trait of the individual. Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) repre...

Methods

Researchers had children practice with working memory tasks to see whether this would lead to improvements in their cognitive test results. They tracked their performance over time and tested them on other working memory tests to see whether improvements in working memory carried over to working memory in general.

Study Quote

Klingberg et al. 2002

In the present study, we used a new training paradigm with intensive and adaptive training of WM tasks and evaluated the effect of training with a double blind, placebo controlled design.

Results

A small study found that practice with working memory tests led to overall improvements in working memory for those with ADHD.

Researchers found that working memory training improved performance on working memory tests, including tests that the children were not trained on. This suggests that training can help with working memory in general.

Children without ADHD who were trained also performed better on complex reasoning tests, and they had fewer head movements during the test.

There was also evidence that children without ADHD benefited from training, suggesting that practice with cognitive tasks may help healthy individuals.

Study Quote

Klingberg et al. 2002

Training significantly enhanced performance on the trained WM tasks. More importantly, the training significantly improved performance on a nontrained visuo-spatial WM task and on Raven's Progressive Matrices, which is a nonverbal complex reasoning task. In addition, motor activity--as m...

Conclusions

Studies have shown that working memory deficits are quite common among those with ADHD:

Based on these results, researchers concluded that working memory training could potentially improve some of the cognitive deficits in ADHD.

Subsequent studies have found similar benefits of brain training in working memory:

Study Quote

Klingberg et al. 2002

These results demonstrate that performance on WM tasks can be significantly improved by training, and that the training effect also generalizes to nontrained tasks requiring WM. Training improved performance on tasks related to prefrontal functioning and had also a significant effect on ...