Special Education - Improving Student Memory

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     Surprisingly, our abilities at retaining information can both improve and decay.  Some children just seem to not be able to demonstrate decent short-term memory skills.  Personally, I believe that they either have information overload or they might be experiencing some anxiety which both occupy their minds.

     There are quite a few techniques that you can incorporate at home in order to improve your child’s short-term memory skills.

·         First, have your child’s hearing checked by a professional.

·         Reward your child any time he demonstrates good short-term memory skills.  The reward can be anything from praise to a hug to extra computer time.  

·         Find out if your child’s difficulty resides in the lack of ability to follow multi-step instructions.  Start your child off with one or two instructions at a time.  When he has mastered, let’s say, two step instructions, start to give him three.

·         Have your child be the ‘house messenger’.  She can have a special job relaying verbal messages.  You can increase the complexity of the messages as she shows that she can handle lengthy messages.  This will give your child confidence and pride (which are powerful motivators for success).

·         Books!!  Have your child give a retell of a story.  Your child should include the characters, the plot, and the settings in chronological order.

     Try to follow as many of these techniques as you can and you will definitely see an improvement in your ADD/ADHD child’s short-term memory abilities.

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