Understanding working memory in children can provide insight into the daily struggles you battle with your children. To put it simply, working memory is to blame for your child’s frequent forgetfulness.
You ask your child to put their homework in their backpack, grab their shoes, and bring their water bottle downstairs.
A few minutes later, they appear with their shoes—but no homework or water bottle.
Or maybe your child reads an entire paragraph and immediately struggles to tell you what it said. They understand how to solve a math problem but lose track of the steps halfway through. Their teacher gives the class three instructions, and your child completes the first one before looking around to see what everyone else is doing.
It can be tempting to assume a child isn’t listening, isn’t paying attention, or simply needs to try harder to remember.
But sometimes, frequent forgetting is worth looking at more closely.
What Is Working Memory?
Working memory is the ability to temporarily hold information in mind while doing something with it.
Think of it as a small mental workspace.
If someone tells you a phone number and you repeat it to yourself long enough to type it into your phone, you’re using working memory. If you’re calculating a tip in your head, you’re using working memory to hold onto numbers while performing the calculation.
Students rely on working memory throughout the school day, often without realizing it.
They use it when they:
- Listen to a teacher while taking notes
- Remember the steps of a math problem while solving it
- Follow multi-step directions
- Keep track of what they’ve read long enough to understand a paragraph
- Hold an idea in mind while writing it down
- Remember what they were supposed to retrieve from their backpack
- Listen to a question while formulating an answer
When working memory is an area of difficulty, these everyday tasks can require much more effort.
Working Memory Isn’t the Same as Long-Term Memory
A child may be able to describe a family vacation from three years ago in remarkable detail but forget an instruction you gave them 30 seconds ago.
That can make the forgetting seem selective.
But remembering a past experience and temporarily holding information in mind are different cognitive processes.
A student with working-memory difficulties isn’t necessarily someone with a “bad memory.” They may have an excellent memory for facts, experiences, stories, people or subjects that interest them while still having difficulty holding onto information long enough to complete a task.
That’s why the pattern can sometimes be difficult to recognize.
What Can Working-Memory Difficulties Look Like at School?
Working memory can affect academic tasks in different ways.
Reading
Reading comprehension requires more than recognizing individual words.
As students move through a sentence or paragraph, they need to retain information they have already read and connect it with what comes next.
A student may technically be able to read the words on the page but reach the bottom and realize they have lost track of what the passage was about. They may frequently reread material or have difficulty answering questions about something they just read.
Math
Math often requires students to hold several pieces of information in mind simultaneously.
A student may understand the concept being taught but lose track of a number, forget where they are in a multi-step process, or have difficulty completing mental calculations.
The resulting mistake may look like the student doesn’t understand the math when the underlying concept isn’t necessarily the problem.
Writing
Writing places many demands on the brain at once.
A student may be thinking about what they want to say while also considering spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, handwriting or typing, and the instructions for the assignment.
Sometimes a child can explain an idea beautifully out loud but struggles to get that same idea onto paper. Part of the difficulty may be holding onto the thought while simultaneously managing everything required to write it down.
Following Directions
Multi-step directions are another common challenge.
A teacher might say:
“Finish the last two questions, put your worksheet in the blue bin, get your reading book, and meet your group on the carpet.”
A student may begin the first task and then realize they can’t remember what was supposed to happen next.
From the outside, it can look like the student wasn’t listening. In reality, they may have heard the entire instruction but had difficulty holding all of it in their mental workspace.
When “I Forgot” Starts to Sound Like an Excuse
Parents can understandably become frustrated when the same problems happen repeatedly.
“I forgot my homework.”
“I forgot you told me.”
“I forgot what I was supposed to do.”
Eventually, “I forgot” can begin to sound like an excuse.
But repeated forgetting is worth approaching with curiosity, particularly when the child seems equally frustrated by it.
Look at the pattern rather than one forgotten assignment or instruction.
Does your child frequently lose track of multi-step directions? Do they need information repeated? Does homework take considerably longer than expected? Can they explain a concept verbally but struggle when several pieces of information need to be managed at once?
Those observations can be more informative than simply concluding that a child needs to “pay better attention.”
Is Working Memory Part of Executive Functioning?
Working memory is closely connected to the broader set of skills we often refer to as executive functions.
Executive functioning helps us manage tasks and behavior: planning, organizing, initiating tasks, managing time, shifting between activities, monitoring our work and remembering the information we need along the way.
That means what looks like a memory problem may sometimes appear alongside other difficulties.
For example, a student might regularly forget assignments, underestimate how long projects will take, lose materials, have trouble getting started, and become overwhelmed by tasks with many steps.
Looking at the larger pattern can help parents and educators understand whether the issue seems isolated or part of a broader difficulty with learning and executive functioning.
Does Difficulty With Working Memory Mean My Child Has a Learning Disability or ADHD?
Not necessarily.
Working-memory difficulties can occur for different reasons and shouldn’t be used by themselves to diagnose a learning disability, ADHD or another condition.
Children also have occasional trouble remembering instructions because they’re tired, distracted, overwhelmed, stressed or simply thinking about something else.
That’s why one behavior rarely tells us very much on its own.
What’s more useful is noticing persistent patterns across time and situations, particularly when those difficulties are interfering with a child’s ability to demonstrate what they know.
When Is It Worth Looking Deeper?
If your child occasionally forgets a homework assignment or needs a reminder to grab their lunchbox, that isn’t necessarily cause for concern.
But if you consistently see a mismatch between what your child seems to understand and what they’re able to accomplish independently, it may be worth gathering more information.
Start by talking with your child’s teacher.
Ask what they observe during the school day. Does your child frequently need instructions repeated? Do they lose track during multi-step assignments? Is there a noticeable difference between what they can explain verbally and what they produce independently?
The goal isn’t to arrive at a diagnosis based on a handful of behaviors. It’s to develop a clearer picture of where your child is succeeding and where they’re having difficulty.
How Educational Testing Can Help
When academic difficulties persist and the reason isn’t clear, a comprehensive educational evaluation can provide information about how a student learns.
Rather than looking only at grades or whether a child can complete a particular assignment, an evaluation can examine patterns of strengths and weaknesses across different areas of learning and cognitive processing.
Working memory may be one piece of that larger picture.
For families who have spent months—or sometimes years—saying, “I know my child understands this. Why is it still so difficult?” having more specific information can help guide conversations about appropriate support.
Understanding the “Why” Behind the Forgetting
Children forget things. Adults do, too.
The goal isn’t to analyze every misplaced worksheet or forgotten instruction.
But when forgetting becomes a consistent obstacle to learning, it’s worth considering what may be happening beneath the surface.
A student who has difficulty holding information in mind may need to put considerably more effort into tasks that appear simple from the outside. Recognizing that possibility can shift the conversation from:
“Why aren’t you listening?”
to:
“What is making this difficult?”
And sometimes, asking that second question is an important first step toward understanding how a child learns.
Educational Testing in Santa Clarita, CA
I am a Licensed Educational Psychologist who provides educational testing for children, teens, college students and adults in Santa Clarita, California.
If you have concerns about your child’s learning, attention, memory or academic performance and would like to learn whether an educational evaluation may be appropriate, contact me to learn more about educational testing services.
