The publication of a new book in the field of working memory is timely, as there are few topics currently eliciting greater interest for practitioners working with children and adolescents with neurodevelopmental problems. Long identified as a key construct in cognitive psychology due to its relationship to intelligence, cognitive development and real world skills, much recent interest has been stirred by claims that specific interventions can directly enhance working memory functioning, thereby improving the academic and general outcome of children with developmental disorders.
Authored by Tracy Alloway, a psychologist with a history of research in the field, and Ross Alloway, a research scholar and developer of the Jungle Memory intervention, Understanding Working Memory is a revision of the first author's Improving Working Memory (Packiam Alloway, Reference Packiam Alloway2010). The revised work aims to introduce to practitioners the nature of working memory and its relationship with specific developmental conditions. An introductory chapter provides a brief overview of the concept of working memory, its relationship with intelligence and learning, and the importance of identifying deficits in working memory. A second chapter examines the assessment of working memory, with a focus on Alloway's Automated Working Memory Assessment and discussion of working memory measures on intelligence batteries. The following six chapters describe working memory problems proposed to accompany reading difficulties, mathematics difficulties, developmental coordination disorder, ADHD, autistic spectrum disorder, and anxiety disorders. A final chapter briefly describes strategies for encouraging learning in students with working memory difficulties.
Generally, the book provides a broad introduction to working memory in accessible, non-technical language. It is likely to appeal to teachers and health professionals approaching the topic of working memory for the first time, and its strength lies in the descriptive case examples that bring to life learning difficulties faced by children with diverse developmental cognitive disorders.
For educational and developmental psychologists, the book may cover familiar ground, and its discussion of the various disorders will be noted to be somewhat limited in scope and detail. It should be emphasised that this book does not strive to present a contemporary scientific account of the theoretical framework of working memory, cognitive and neurobiological dysfunction thought to underlie each of the disorders discussed, the relation of these deficits to working memory, or a systematic review of the methods of assessing working memory. The authors also do not seek to provide a critical evaluation of the effectiveness of proposed interventions for working memory, which is a topic of considerable controversy: there is ongoing debate over the evidence of the effectiveness of working memory interventions, with theoretical critiques (e.g., Shipstead, Redick, & Engle, Reference Shipstead, Redick and Engle2012) and meta-analytic reviews (Melby-Lervag & Hulme, Reference Melby-Lervåg and Hulme2013) both challenging simplistic views of the utility of such interventions.
Overall, Understanding Working Memory provides a readable, general introduction to the nature of working memory and its hypothesised impact upon several common developmental disorders.
