The Assessment of Verbal and Visuospatial Working Memory With School Age Canadian Children

This study investigated the structure of short-term and working memory in a sample of North American children between 5 and 9 years of age. The Automated Working Memory Assessment (AWMA) is a standardized test normed on a UK sample containing several tasks measuring short-term and working memory across both the verbal and visuospatial domains. A group of 178 school age Canadian children completed the 12 subtests of the AWMA. A three-factor model of working memory was supported. Performance on the different tasks was compared with the normative sample and while the same pattern of results was found, the North American sample's performance on several tasks was higher. The findings are consistent with a model of working memory characterized by domain-specific storage and domain-general processing components. Cultural differences were noted for the short-term but not working memory measures.