Researchers are increasingly interested in working memory (WM) training. However, it remains unclear whether it strengthens WM and comprehension among young children. We investigated whether training verbal WM would improve verbal WM and listening comprehension, and whether training effects differed between 2 approaches: drill and practice vs. rehearsal. Fifty-eight first-grade children were randomly assigned to three groups: WM drill and practice, WM rehearsal training, and the control. The two training groups received one 35-minute session of verbal WM training on each of 10 consecutive school days, totaling 5.8 hours. Both groups demonstrated improvement on trained verbal WM tasks, with the rehearsal group showing greater gains. Compared to controls, the rehearsal group also made significant improvements on an untrained verbal WM task (i.e., Listening Recall) and listening comprehension and retell measures. In comparison to controls, the drill and practice group showed significant improvement in listening comprehension, but not on the retell task. Findings suggest that brief but intensive verbal WM training is feasible with young children and can strengthen their verbal WM and comprehension performance. Caveats and implications for theory and future research are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-02212014-101348 |
| Date | 29 March 2014 |
| Creators | Peng, Peng |
| Contributors | Emily Tanner-Smith, Donald Compton, Lynn Fuchs, Douglas Fuchs |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-02212014-101348/ |
| Rights | restrictsix, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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