Learning is essential for human development. From kindergarten through college, students must learn and remember an incredible amount of knowledge and skills. Although learning extends beyond the school years, the amount and intensity of learning that children, adolescents, and young adults are exposed is never equaled later in life. Learning is critical to development.
Yet many children struggle with learning and memory problems. This can be a concern when a child is referred for an assessment of learning problems. Cognitive difficulties can frequently be found in children diagnosed with:
Despite the importance of memory and learning, many clinicians use only IQ and achievement tests to determine the causes of learning problems. Although many IQ tests address working memory, working memory focuses on briefly stored information. Very few IQ tests are designed to address longer-term retention, which is a critical component to classroom learning and academic success.
What can be done to address memory concerns in students?
Students who are not able to convert information from their working memory into long-term storage may be unable to learn in school and can have issues beyond the classroom— socially, occupationally, and behaviorally.
Pairing a memory test with achievement and IQ tests can help clinicians make more accurate diagnoses and create better recommendations and interventions. Memory assessment also can help to differentiate between conditions that are associated with memory problems (e.g., language impairment, learning disability, ASD) and those that are related to other domains, such as sustained attention or working memory (e.g., ADHD).
Memory testing also helps identify individual cognitive profiles in conditions where memory problems may coexist with other cognitive problems, such as in developmental disorders, or with neurological disorders such as traumatic brain injury.
Moreover, by identifying each child’s unique profile of learning strengths and weaknesses, memory assessment provides critical pathways for establishing compensatory strategies and creating appropriate accommodations in the classroom and at home. For example, by determining if a child is a better visual or verbal learner, clinicians obtain valuable information on strengths and weaknesses in that child’s learning.
Rethinking the role of memory
Though people tend to think about memory in relation to its ability for encoding and recollection, ultimately, its role is to help individuals to accurately predict future events and make sound decisions for the future based on stored knowledge. When you think about memory using this perspective, assessing a child’s current capacity for learning provides a way to measure future capacity for school and work performance. It is also an important way to identify areas where a student may benefit from remediation and support.
How to choose the best test of memory for your school-age clients
If you are considering adding a memory test to your battery, here are some things to consider.
A good memory test should:
(1) be able to assess a wide range of examinees referred for learning and academic problems, addressing the needs of school-aged children through young adults;
(2) be appropriate for use with both healthy examinees who may have minor learning delays as well as for those with multiple neurological and medical problems;
(3) offer portability and convenience for different settings;
(4) be suitable for both brief screenings and comprehensive psychoeducational and neuropsychological assessment;
(5) captivate the attention of distractible or very young examinees;
(6) offer relevancy to the daily lives of the children and young adults;
(7) include results that lead to recommendations across both home and school environments;
(8) accurately identify examinees whose low scores are due to behavioral, motivational, or emotional problems; and
(9) be usable with children who have motor or other impairments unrelated to memory.
A good test of memory can do all these things and more. Thinking about adding a memory test to your battery? Learn more about the Child and Adolescent Memory Profile (ChAMP).
The Hopkins Verbal Learning Test–Revised™ (HVLT-R™) and the Brief Visuospatial Memory Test–Revised™ (BVMT-R™) are now available for scoring on PARiConnect. The HVLT-R assesses verbal learning and memory, while the BVMT-R measures visuospatial memory. Both tests are neuropsychological assessments that can be used together as part of a battery.
HVLT-R and BVMT-R Score Reports generated by PARiConnect provide:
A score summary table that provides raw scores, T scores, and percentiles
A raw score profile
A T-score profile
Save valuable clinical time by letting PARiConnect handle the scoring. Now you can easily score these assessments online and without the expense of software or licenses. Learn more about the HVLT-R and the BVMT-R now!
Don’t have a PARiConnect account? It’s easy to sign up! Learn more
Interested in research conducted using the HVLT-R and BVMT-R? Click here and here to see our lists of research articles.
Related article: New on PARiConnect: Digital Library
February 14-21 is Alzheimer’s and Dementia Staff Education Week. This week brings awareness to the importance of properly training individuals from a variety of fields. Whether you are a health care provider, 911 operator, first responder, clergy member, elder care attorney, or have another role working with the elderly, this week focuses on the importance of comprehensive dementia education.
Beyond educating individuals beyond those in mental and physical health care about the importance of dementia education, the week also shines a spotlight on caregivers supporting individuals with these diagnoses.
Some resources for Alzheimer’s disease and dementia care
The National Institute on Aging is the primary government agency conducting research on Alzheimer’s disease.
The Alzheimer’s Association is the leading voluntary health organization in Alzheimer’s care, support, and research. The association’s website offers resources for caregivers as well as those living with Alzheimer’s.
The National Council of Certified Dementia Practitioners (NCCDP) provides resources, including seminars and training. NCCDP members may download a free Alzheimer’s and Dementia Staff Education Week toolkit from their website.
Need help assessing for neurocognitive impairment?
Patients with neurocognitive impairment such as dementia are often unreliable reporters of their symptoms. An observer—such as a family member, friend, or home health care nurse—can often provide valuable insight into an individual’s functioning. The Older Adult Cognitive Screener™ (OACS™) is a quick informant rating scale that helps provide information on a patient’s mental status and determine if there is a need for more in-depth testing. Learn more about the OACS.
The Dementia Rating Scale–2™ (DRS-2™) measures mental status in individuals with cognitive impairment. It assesses an individual’s mental status over time.
More than 640,000 children and adolescents visit the emergency room each year for concerns related to traumatic brain injury (TBI). TBI can have a negative impact on an individual’s learning and memory, affecting educational attainment in school and beyond. New research on TBI provides more insight into its effect on children and adolescents.
Just-published research in the journal Assessment provides evidence of clinical utility of the Child and Adolescent Memory Profile (ChAMP; Sherman & Brooks, 2015) as part of a more comprehensive evaluation of traumatic brain injury in children and adolescents. The ChAMP assesses visual and verbal memory that allows for both in-depth evaluation and memory screening.
Kate Wilson, Sofia Lesica, and Jacobus Donders from the Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan assessed 61 children and adolescents with TBI using the ChAMP within 1 to 12 months after injury. They found that most ChAMP index scores demonstrated significant negative correlations with time to follow commands following TBI. After comparing ChAMP scores to a matched control group, they found that individuals with TBI had statistically significantly lower scores on all indexes, though sensitivity and specificity were suboptimal.
The researchers concluded that the ChAMP has modest utility as part of a comprehensive evaluation of TBI in children and adolescents. Learn more about their research or learn more about the ChAMP.