Can improving working memory prevent academic difficulties? a school based randomised controlled trial

This randomised controlled trial aims to recruit 440 children with low working memory after a school-based screening of 2880 children in Grade one. We will approach caregivers of all children from 48 participating primary schools in metropolitan Melbourne for consent. Children with low working memory will be randomised to usual care or the intervention. The intervention will consist of 25 computerised working memory training sessions, which take approximately 35 minutes each to complete. Follow-up of children will be conducted at 6, 12 and 24 months post-randomisation through child face-to-face assessment, parent and teacher surveys and data from government authorities. The primary outcome is academic achievement at 12 and 24 months, and other outcomes include child behaviour, attention, health-related quality of life, working memory, and health and educational service utilisation.A successful start to formal learning in school sets the stage for future academic, psychological and economic well-being. If this preventive intervention can be shown to be efficacious, then we will have the potential to prevent academic underachievement in large numbers of at-risk children, to offer a ready-to-use intervention to the Australian school system and to build international research partnerships along the health-education interface, in order to carry our further studies of effectiveness and generalisability.Low academic achievement, such as poor literacy, is a common and serious problem, and affects between 10-20% of the population [1,2]. The adverse social and economic long-term outcomes of these difficulties are clear. They include grade repetition, behavioural disorders, mood and self-esteem difficulties and school failure during the school years, [3-5] and unemployment and poverty in adulthood [6].Learning during childhood is a transactional process between the child and their environment [7]. A poor reader is less likely to read for pleasure and more likely to avoid pract