Assessment of working memory in six- and seven-year-old children

Using cognitive methods to fractionate functionally distinct aspects of short-term memory, a test battery was designed to tap the A. D. Baddeley and G. Hitch (1974) model of working memory. The battery was administered to 87 children aged 6 and 7 years; other standardized attainment measures were obtained for a subgroup of the children concurrently and 1 year later. Correlations between subtest scores indicated high construct validity for the central executive and phonological loop measures, although not for the visuospatial measures. Central executive scores shared unique associations with performance on the vocabulary, literacy, and arithmetic tests, whereas phonological loop scores shared specific associations with vocabulary knowledge only. The substantial internal and external validity of the test battery establishes its suitability for guiding detailed theoretical analyses of working memory function.