The 5 Key Aspects of IQ Testing: Working Memory

Hi, I’m Elizabeth Blaetz, Head of School at Vanguard Gifted Academy. In this series, we're going to dive into IQ scores. To most parents, an IQ test is a composite score used for an entry exam. I have spent over 20 years reading and using IQ testing to better teach gifted children. Each of the five key aspects of IQ testing gives insight about how the student learns. In this series of podcasts, I'm going to explain each of these aspects and share how it relates to learning. 

The first aspect I'd like to talk about is working memory. Working memory is the ability to retain and use small pieces of information as needed while completing a project or a task. This is really important in learning. In the classroom, teachers so often give directions for getting ready to do a project. When they're giving those directions, a student’s working memory is active. It's saying, “I need to remember a pencil. I need to bring a piece of paper. I need to have a blue marker.” So when a child's working memory is a little bit slower, he has a hard time remembering some of those little incidentals when he’s getting ready to do a big project. 

Now, this kind of information is not valuable in the long run, so your brain doesn't need to keep it in either long-term or short-term memory.  It just kind of sits in the front of your mind as you're moving along, and you only try to keep it there for your immediate use. When you're a gifted child who has poor working memory, your mind is going so fast and you show up with all of the things you think you need to do a project, but you find that you’re missing the small things, and you get very frustrated! You understand the concepts, you want to move forward, but the teacher gets frustrated because you don't have your pencil and you forgot the blue marker. These things will hold up a gifted child if his working memory score is not at the same high level as his other scores in the IQ test. 

If working memory is a challenge, one of the best things a teacher can do is to put a list of items on the board so the child has a resource to look at and doesn't have to rely on his working memory to have all the right supplies he needs for the project. 

Many teachers are very hesitant to identify a gifted child when the child has low working memory. They don't appreciate the value of him understanding the high-level concepts because he never has the right tools for the job.  They don't make the leap, that this is just a working memory difference rather than a situation where he doesn't know or doesn't understand or isn't able to manage his workload. So, especially in cases where acceleration is used to serve gifted children, the teacher doesn't identify children with lower working memory as gifted because he can't manage his supplies as well. Having a high IQ with a lower working memory means that that child needs to learn the strategies that go with supporting the lower working memory. 

Now, the trick here is if his IQ is in the 90th percentile or above and his working memory is in the 75th percentile, his working memory is still way above average. Yet it's slowing that gifted child down because his mind can work at the 95th, 96th, 97th percentile. The casual IQ test reader may not identify this as a problem, and the child won’t understand for himself that it's the working memory that's slowing him down, so the child doesn't develop strategies.

By looking deeply at their IQ testing, I can help them. I can teach them strategies they can use themselves, and I can use strategies to help them as they grow as a learner. 

Working memory is a key component of an IQ test, and it's something that's really important for educators to know about.  That's just one aspect of an IQ test that many people don't even realize is there. 

Thank you so much for listening. You can find more resources about working memory on our website, so please check them out. I hope you'll join us for our next episode where I will be sharing about processing speed.