Working memory a better scale than IQ

For decades, teachers have relied on traditional IQ test to assess a child's learning potential. But now scientists have claimed that in this Internet age, working memory is a better measure of mental abilities in youngsters.

"Working memory measures our ability to process and remember short-term information. It's about how well we juggle different thoughts and tasks. It assesses people's ability to process information and keep track of complex tasks, so it is relevant to many aspects of modern lifestyles.

"There's a great deal of variation between different individuals and it is becoming clear that it is a much better way of predicting academic attainment," The Sunday Times quoted Tracy Alloway of Stirling University as saying.

In her latest research, Alloway gave working memory and IQ tests to 98 children aged 4.3 to 5.7 years in full-time preschool education. Six years on, she revisited the children, now aged 10 and 11, asking them to take a battery of tests to measure working memory and IQ.

"Critically, we find that working memory at the start of formal education is a more powerful predictor of subsequent academic success than IQ," said Alloway, whose findings are to published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

However, other psychologists believe that IQ tests still have a lot to offer.

Professor Robert Logie, who teaches human cognitive neuroscience at Edinburgh University and an expert in working memory, said measuring IQ gave a far more complete view of a person's all-round mental abilities. "There are many aspects to intelligence, and working memory is important but it is far from being the whole story."