What would a child with a learning disability affecting short term memory look like?

Question

How would this affect them at home? At school? What would this look like in a preschool child? Would symptoms become worse as the child ages?

Answer 1

Try playing a matching game.  Or ask you child to repeat after you...   3  4  8  9    ask them to repeat what you said.  

Also, ask for their friends names.  If they forget thier friends names, (seriously) there is definately an issue.  My child forgets his friends names all the time.  My child has memory issues.  Sometimes you can improve on there memory by counting and pushing them on a swing.  A rythym is made, it's like singing a song...  This is how I taught my kids to remember thier phone numbers.  I made a song up on the swing set.  My kids still sing the song to recite thier phone number...  :-)  They are in middle school now.

Answer 2

it would look lost! lol

Answer 3

The thing is, with a learning disability,

usually poor grades are the first sign that they are having learning problems, especially if it's just in a particular subject.  

As you are also asking about "short-term memory," that is usually defined as someone who has an "attention deficit disorder."  

That type of behavior includes, but is not limited to:

Out-of-seat behavior  (usually describing hyperactivity)

Interrupting others

Fidgeting

Difficulty completing tasks

Difficulty focusing/concentrating

There do seem to be 'degrees' of attention problems, as well as learning disabilities.  In other words,  if the symptoms are bad enough to interfere with school grades or communication at home, then a pediatrician should be consulted.

Hope this helps.

God bless.

Answer 4

They would not remember what you said three minutes ago (actual time may vary) without a visual prompt usually.  A visual schedule would be helpful to give the child independence and the caregiver a break!!  I think it probably gets extremely confused with attention problems.

Answer 5

Deficits in short-term memory do not necessarily equal AD/HD.  True, many kids with AD/HD have problems with short term memory, but the opposite is not always true.  

Probably one of the first things you might notice in a young child would be difficulty following multi-step directions.  You might say, go upstairs and get $5 from my dresser and bring down your shoes and socks.  In a few minutes, you might get, "I looked in your dresser but I couldn't find your socks!"

That's a 3-step direction.  Practice one- or two-step directions before moving on to more steps.

Do a google search on "short-term memory activities" or "working memory activities" or "mnemonic strategies."

There are a few sites out there that have fun games related to building memory capacity.

With appropriate remediation of weaknesses and/or strengthening of strengths, the child should learn ways to compensate for the disability.  I think symptoms would only become worse if there was no intervention.

Answer 6

The child would probably be very frustrated and become angry, exhibiting any number of behaviors - yelling, striking out, crying, refusing to participate in class, tantrums.  The behaviors would become more dangerous to the child and others as the child gets bigger.  Teachers for a child with a short-term memory disability will need to work with the child to get information into the child's long-term memory, using things like picture schedules when the child is young, and they will need to help the child learn adaptive behaviors so the child can find a detour around the roadblock of short-term memory problems.