Working memory capacity, variability, and response to intervention at age 6 and its association to inattention and mathematics age 9

Intra‐individual variability in task performance after cognitive training is associated with long‐term outcomes in children

“…Compared to measures of central tendency (e.g., mean or median), intra-individual variability measures have shown to be more sensitive to fatigue in young adults (Wang et al, 2014), or to externally rated attention problems (Gómez-Guerrero et al, 2011), and to correctly classify patients with ADHD (Klein et al, 2006). Intra-individual variability in accuracy within and between sessions in working memory tasks has been associated with academic performance in 3rd and 4th grade school children (Dirk & Schmiedek, 2016), and a recent study in 6-year-old children showed that intra-individual variability after working memory cognitive training was associated with performance in mathematics 3 years later (Judd et al, 2021).…”

Day‐to‐day variation in students’ academic success: The role of self‐regulation, working memory, and achievement goals

“…Studies additionally demonstrated negative associations between variations in children's daily WM and academic achievement in mathematics and German (i.e., mother tongue; Dirk & Schmiedek, 2016) and between daily WM span and mathematics grades 3 years later (Judd et al., 2021), corroborating the notion that students’ daily WM should be considered a central determinant of general school outcomes (Lechuga et al., 2014).…”

Daily fluctuations in children’s working memory accuracy and precision: Variability at multiple time scales and links to daily sleep behavior and fluid intelligence

“…While moment-to-moment fluctuations in WM have been identified as an important aspect in describing age-related improvements in WM (Fagot et al, 2018;Galeano Weber et al, 2018;Judd et al, 2021;Mella et al, 2015), past studies did not specify the origin of fluctuating WM or their coupling to potential antecedents. Fluctuations in attentional control may reflect a likely predictor of transient WM fluctuations (Bays & Husain, 2008;Ma et al, 2014;van den Berg et al, 2012).…”

“…Developmental studies on fluctuating working memory in children are scarce (Fagot et al, 2018;Gasimova et al, 2014;Judd et al, 2021;Mella et al, 2015). Some of these studies showed that WM becomes more stable with increasing age throughout childhood, particularly, in terms of reduced trial-to-trial variability in behavioral measures of RT and accuracy (Fagot et al, 2018;Mella et al, 2015).…”