Children’s understanding, and their use of memory and learning strategies, is a considerably more complex situation than most of us realize. To get some feeling for this complexity, let’s start by looking at a specific area of knowledge: mathematics.
Here’s a math problem:
Pete has 3 apples. Ann also has some apples. Pete and Ann have 9 apples altogether. How many apples does Ann have?
This seems pretty straightforward, right? How about this one:
Brain autopsies have revealed that a significant number of people die with Alzheimer’s disease evident in their brain, although in life their cognition wasn’t obviously impaired. From this, the idea of a “cognitive reserve” has arisen — the idea that brains with a higher level of neuroplasticity can continue to work apparently normally in the presence of (sometimes quite extensive) brain damage.
Vascular dementia, as its name suggests, is caused by poor blood flow, produced by a single, localized stroke, or series of strokes.
It is the second most common dementia, accounting for perhaps 17% of dementias. It also co-occurs with Alzheimer's in 25-45% of cases. Although there are other types of dementia that also co-occur with Alzheimer's, mixed dementia generally refers to the co-occurrence of Alzheimer's and vascular dementia.
Have you ever been driving a car and suddenly you’re not sure what to do? You’re traveling along in usual automatic fashion and there comes a moment when you need to engage a new subroutine — say, you need to give way at an intersection, or you stall at the traffic lights, or you stop the car — and suddenly, you don’t know what to do. There’s a flash of panic, even while you’re thinking, “This is stupid, I’ve done this a thousand times”, and then, maybe it’s all right, maybe you have to take a moment to get your head in the right space, and ...
Let me start by saying that if you're healthy and are eating a good balanced diet, there should be no need for you to take supplements. I also want to emphasize that the best way of meeting your body's needs for certain vitamins and minerals is to get them from food. In some cases, for one reason or another, this may not be possible. For example, as a (mostly) vegan, I take iron and B12 supplements, to make up for these deficiencies in my diet. Elderly adults with small appetites may also find it hard to get all the nutrients they need from their diet.
"Consolidation" is a term that is bandied about a lot in recent memory research. Here's my take on what it means.
Initially, information is thought to be encoded as patterns of neural activity — cells "talking" to each other. Later, the information is coded in more persistent molecular or structural formats (e.g., the formation of new synapses). It has been assumed that once this occurs, the memory is "fixed" — a permanent, unchanging, representation.
When we are presented with new information, we try and connect it to information we already hold. This is automatic. Sometimes the information fits in easily; other times the fit is more difficult — perhaps because some of our old information is wrong, or perhaps because we lack some of the knowledge we need to fit them together.
To use note-taking effectively, you need to understand that its primary value is not in the record you produce, it is in the process itself. The process of taking notes guides the memory codes you make. Note-taking is a strategy for making information meaningful. It is therefore only effective to the extent that you paraphrase, organize and make sense of the information while taking notes.
When considering what will be the most effective strategies for you, don't forget the basic principles of memory:
(1) Repetition repetition repetition
The trick is to find a way of repeating that is interesting to you. This is partly governed by level of difficulty (too easy is boring; too difficult is discouraging). The point is to find an activity (more than one, in fact), which enable you to hold on to your motivation through sufficient repetitions to drive them into your head. Bear in mind, too, the importance of:
(2) Changing context