Memory and Learning: What Works?

1st and 2nd September 2011

Westmead Hospital, Sydney

Conference Overview - Working memory is our ability to store and manipulate information for a brief time. Effective working memory is crucial and necessary to undertake many everyday tasks and learning activities. Processes such as mental arithmetic, carrying out a sequence of operations or following spoken instructions all involve working memory. Research indicates that working memory is a strong predictor of learning success. This year's conference “Memory and Learning: What Works?” will focus on working memory, how it relates to other cognitive functions, its role in classroom learning and in the acquisition of academic skills. In addition, methods of identifying poor working memory in school aged children and interventions to improve working memory will be presented.  This conference will be of interest to psychologists, school counsellors, guidance officers, teachers, support and special education teachers and medical professionals.

Registration brochure click here  (1,130 KB)

and

Conference Abstracts - click here   (155 KB PDF)

Keynote speaker: Professor Susan Gathercole

The Centre for Working Memory and Learning, University of York.

Susan Gathercole is a cognitive psychologist with particular interests in memory and learning, both in typically-developing children and children with developmental disorders of learning. She has published over 100 articles on memory and learning, and her current work focuses both on the fundamental deficits underlying difficulties in learning, and on the development and evaluation of programmes of support to overcome these difficulties. Susan has been the recipient of two awards from the British Psychological Society - the Spearman Medal for outstanding early career research in 1989, and the President’s Award in 2007 for a distinguished contribution to psychological knowledge. In April 2011, Susan takes on a new role as Director of the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at Cambridge.                               

Professor Gathercole is proudly sponsored by Pearson Clinical Assessment

Keynote speaker: Professor Vicki Anderson

Director, Department of Psychology, Royal Children's Hospital, Professorial Fellow, University of Melbourne and Director, Critical Care and Neuroscience Research, Murdoch Children's Research Institute

Professor Anderson is a paediatric neuropsychologist of some 30 years experience. She started her career working at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, where she worked as a clinician, and then Co-ordinator of Neuropsychology Services, until taking up a lectureship at the University of Melbourne. In 2002 she was appointed Professor/Director of Psychology at the Royal Children’ s Hospital, and in 2005 she took up an additional role with the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, as Director, Critical Care and Neuroscience Research. Her interests are in disorders of childhood that impact on the central nervous system, including both developmental and acquired disorders, and child and parent-focussed interventions for this group.

Please contact the CHERI office on 02 9845 0418 or email info@cheri.com.au to receive further information about conferences or register your interest in other topics by clicking here.