title: Investigating the predictive roles of working memory and IQ in academic attainment.
abstract: There is growing evidence for the relationship between working memory and academic attainment. The aim of the current study was to investigate whether working memory is simply a proxy for IQ or whether there is a unique contribution to learning outcomes. The findings indicate that children's working memory skills at 5 years of age were the best predictor of literacy and numeracy 6 years later. IQ, in contrast, accounted for a smaller portion of unique variance to these learning outcomes. The results demonstrate that working memory is not a proxy for IQ but rather represents a dissociable cognitive skill with unique links to academic attainment. Critically, we find that working memory at the start of formal education is a more powerful predictor of subsequent academic success than IQ. This result has important implications for education, particularly with respect to intervention.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Stirling, Stirling FK94LA, UK. t.p.alloway@stir.ac.uk
authors.forename: Tracy Packiam
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Alloway
authors.forename: Ross G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Alloway
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening; D008433:Mathematics; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D011932:Reading; D012044:Regression Analysis; D006113:United Kingdom