Working memory training

Working memory training repeatedly practices tasks requiring temporary maintenance and manipulation of information, often adjusting difficulty as performance changes. Improving a practiced task, improving a different working memory task and improving classroom learning are separate outcomes.

A study using randomization of children with low working memory compared adaptive working memory training with comparison conditions and tested outcomes beyond the practiced exercises. Gains extended to some untrained working memory measures but did not establish improved academic progress or nonverbal reasoning.^[ref] This distinction motivates controls for practice and expectations, independent outcome tasks and follow-up measurements. A higher training score alone cannot show that a general cognitive capacity has increased; the claim depends on which additional tasks improve and for how long.