September kicked off with a big-picture look at Executive Functioning Skills, then zoomed in on task initiation. Now it’s time to unpack another powerhouse skill: working memory.
Working Memory
What is it?
Working memory is our ability to hold information in our head long enough to work with it before letting it go or connecting it to something else. For example, remembering the next steps in building your IKEA furniture while you look for the hex key, again.
Working memory isn’t the same as short-term memory. Short-term memory helps us to passively store information for a brief period- approximately 15-30 seconds (Ubben, 2023). While both working and short-term memory involve temporary holds, working memory stores information that can be manipulated to help you learn, reason, and understand (“What is short-term memory?”, 2025).
Working memory is active, constantly updating, and usually under time pressure. It helps us to manipulate information to be used immediately and involves attention control and integration with long-term memory. For many autistic students, the demands placed on working memory during the school day can be especially taxing.
Why does it matter?
Executive functioning is like a workshop where complex tasks get done.
Working memory is the bench space where you temporarily put things while you work on them.
If the workbench is cluttered or small, it’s challenging to complete tasks- even with the best tools.
Working memory plays a significant role in how students learn, communicate, and navigate the classroom environment. When working memory is overloaded, or if a student has trouble processing new information, they may:
- lose track of instructions
- struggle to keep their place in multi-step tasks
- have difficulty solving problems that require holding several pieces of information in mind
- find it harder to filter out irrelevant information
- experience increased frustration or anxiety when expectations feel unclear
Think about the last time you read a sentence and reached the end with no idea what it said. How many times did you reread the same sentence before giving up? Working memory helps us hold early parts of a sentence long enough to understand the whole idea. You were probably tired, distracted, or perhaps reading something of low interest. Whatever the case, your working memory was overly taxed and unable to do its job.
After taking a break or going to a more focused space, you might have had more success with that text. However, it is not always so simple for students who struggle with working memory. Imagine always needing to reread the same sentence over and over again and still struggling to understand what you just read seconds ago?
Strong working memory skills support academic tasks such as reading comprehension, mental math, writing, and following classroom routines. They also support social understanding such as keeping track of conversational turns, remembering context, or interpreting multiple cues at once.
How Challenges May Show Up
Challenges with working memory can present differently from student to student. Some students have a smaller working memory capacity AND need to use more of that space to complete tasks other students might do automatically (such as automatically processing what was just said aloud).
For some autistic learners, you might notice:
- needing directions repeated
- starting a task but forgetting the next step
- difficulty copying from the board or transferring information from one place to another
- losing track of materials or parts of an assignment
- struggling to recall recently taught information without visual supports
- appearing inattentive when the real difficulty is holding onto too much information at once
- strong performance when using visuals, written instructions, or predictable routines, but difficulty when demands shift quickly
These behaviors are not signs of laziness or lack of motivation. They are indicators that the student’s cognitive load is too high or maxed out and that support is needed.
Autism + ADHD
Additionally, challenges with working memory may be a sign of attention challenges such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Some studies find that approximately 30 to 40% of autistic individuals also present with ADHD (Rong et al., 2021) while others report rates ranging from 10 to 90% (Hours et al., 2022).
With autism, challenges with attention can more readily be observed when the student has trouble shifting focus or appears to be “not listening.” Whereas with ADHD, challenges tend to show up when the student seems easily distracted or seems to have a short attention span (Rong et al., 2021). Whether a student has a dual diagnosis or not, we need to consider additional hurdles a student might be facing so we can provide appropriate and effective support.
My point in bringing this up, is to remind us:
- There are different types of attention.
- Attention is needed for working memory. We need to be able to focus long enough on the goal to complete the immediate task at hand.
- We have students who may be facing additional barriers and their working memory challenges go well beyond them having trouble shifting their attention from looking at a fun bulletin board to processing the question you just asked aloud.
Want a clearer picture of what might be going on in the brain? Check out the first 3-minutes of “How to ADHD” for an initial explanation of how ADHD impacts working memory.
For additional reading on ASD and ADHD Comorbidity, check out: “ASD and ADHD Comorbidity: What Are We Talking About?” (doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.837424)
Strategies to Consider
The goal: support students by teaching how to take in and work with new information- not just expecting them to “remember” it.
Use specially designed instruction to teach strategies that can generalize across content areas and beyond school.
I’m providing 11 strategies in hopes of you finding 1-2 that work for you and your students:
| The Strategy | Details and Next Step Ideas |
|---|---|
| 1. NOTETAKING | – Model how to pull out key info, use bullet points, create diagrams, and highlight structure. – Provide fill-in-the-blank notes so students can focus on key ideas rather than organizing a blank page. – Use concept maps to build connections. |
| 2. CHUNKING | – Break tasks into manageable parts. – Present one step at a time. Use visual boundaries or number the steps. – Teach students how to chunk on their own, not only when you are present. |
| 3. CHECKLISTS | – Reduce mental load by listing the parts of routines or assignments. – Build independence by teaching students to rely on these supports. – Complete a task analysis to help with this. |
| 4. THINK-ALOUDS | Model the internal dialogue that proficient learners use: – Starting a task: “First I’ll… Then I need to…” – During a task: “I’m noticing that…” – After a task: “It was easier for me to follow the steps in this math problem today. Let me consider what was different this time that made it easier…” (or what was challenging). This helps students understand the cognitive process, not just the final product. |
| 5. REDUCE DISTRACTIONS | – Working memory depends on focused attention. – Create focused spaces and teach students how to identify their own distractions and choose next steps. – Check out Dr. Lucas Harrington’s, “Goal Portals” for students to build awareness and possible next steps. |
| 6. CLEAR, ESTABLISHED ROUTINES | – Strong routines free up working memory for new tasks. – Keep steps predictable so attention can go toward learning. |
| 7. PRESENT ONLY A FEW ITEMS AT A TIME | – Avoid overloading working memory with too many ideas at once. – Present information in small sets unless it can be quickly integrated. – Avoid asking students to hold unintegrated information for long periods (Cowan, 2013). |
| 8. SET UP CONTEXT FIRST (ESPECIALLY WHEN SPEAKING) | – Give the topic before the detail. Example: if you say, “Marconi was the inventor of the modern radio.” ….by the time the full topic of the sentence is known, the name of the inventor has already been kicked out of my working memory. However, if you say, “The modern radio was invented by a man named Marconi,” the context is set up first, making it easier for me to understand what we are talking about, and then put the key name into my notes (Cowan, 2013). |
| 9. CONNECT NEW LEARNING TO KNOWN IDEAS | – Working memory load increases when logical connections don’t yet exist. – When material lacks associations, working memory is taxed until it becomes organized into a coherent structure (Cowan, 2013). – Consider hexagonal thinking, or other hands-on activities, to activate prior knowledge and provide a visual representation of what students are thinking. |
| 10. TEACH AT THE STUDENT’S WORKING-MEMORY LEVEL | – Some students can hold only 1-2 steps at a time. Start there. – Build gradually with monitoring and practice. – Just like we don’t jump from basic addition to long division, we don’t jump from 1-step to 5-step directions. |
| 11. BACK UP ORAL DIRECTIONS WITH VISUAL SUPPORTS | – This can help your students and the many adults in your room who are trying to do many things at once! – Establish a routine: “Check the board for the next step.” – Saves time and reduces repeated directions. |
These strategies must be explicitly taught, modeled, and practiced- they are not inherently intuitive. Even the ones that might seem more like accommodations, such as backing up your oral directions with visual supports, students still need to learn the expectation of that support, where to look for those directions, and then what to do with them.
By reducing the cognitive load in the moment, these supports free up more mental space for students to focus on what really matters: the content you’re teaching.
Ultimately, our students need to determine what works best for them so they can generalize skills across content areas and long after graduation.
Check out Matthew Kenslow’s story, and how he figured out what worked for him:
Matthew Kenslow
Educator, Influencer, Authorhttps://www.instagram.com/reel/DM-5VeJuAHT/
Looking for More?
Check out our TTAC-ODU FREE Resources:
- Unstuck & On Target: An Executive Function Curriculum
- BRIEF: Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function
- Flexible and Focused: Teaching Executive Function Skills to Individuals with Autism and Attention Disorders
Reach out for additional support, resources, and/or to share your ideas!
What to Expect from Future Newsletter Articles
Each newsletter, I’ll focus on one Executive Functioning skill, highlighting:
- What the skill means and why it matters
- Challenges our neurodiverse students may encounter (remember, “neurodiverse” encompasses other disabilities such as ADHD)
- Strategies to consider
Topics I’ll Cover:
- Task Initiation (September Newsletter)
- Working Memory (December Newsletter)
- Self-Monitoring (March Newsletter)
- TBD – Based on reader feedback… there are a lot of skills, and I’d love to hear from you what else would be helpful! (May Newsletter)
Need Something Else?
Reach out with questions,
to brainstorm ideas,
or to simply share a celebration.
A final note: Out of deep respect for diverse perspectives, I use both people-first and identity-first language throughout my articles.
Words are powerful; everyone’s experiences are unique. Be sure to always ask and honor individual preferences.
References:
- Cowan, N. (2013). Working memory underpins cognitive development, learning, and Education. Educational Psychology Review, 26(2), 197–223. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-013-9246-y
- Hours, C., Recasens, C., & Baleyte, J.-M. (2022). ASD and ADHD comorbidity: What are we talking about? Frontiers in Psychiatry, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.837424
- Rong, Y., Yang, C.-J., Jin, Y., & Wang, Y. (2021). Prevalence of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in individuals with autism spectrum disorder: A meta-analysis. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 83, 101759. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rasd.2021.101759
- Ubben, G. (2023, November 9). How long is short-term memory?. Academic Resource Center. https://arc.duke.edu/how-long-is-short-term-memory-shorter-than-you-might-think/)
- What is short-term memory?. Cleveland Clinic. (2025, October 2). https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/short-term-memory