Strategies for athletes with short-term memory deficits

[Turgidson]

I'm hoping someone can suggest strategies for coaching an athlete with short-term memory deficits. The athlete in question is a trampolinist. His skills and positions are very good, and he can do level 6 and 7 compulsory routines. However, he can forget where he is in his routine. He can forget which pass he is doing on double mini. When he makes an error it frustrates him, and I don't have a good library of strategies for helping him through this. We'd like to keep him in the sport. It's one of the things he can actually do and do fairly well.

Thanks

Paul

 

[Deleted member D3987]

you didn't say how old he is and how long he has been in.

 

[Turgidson]

The kid is 13, 14 according to USAG. He's always been a little difficult, but had much less trouble with this when he was younger. Does this stuff get worse around puberty?

 

[Deleted member D3987]

does he have some diagnosed condition?

 

[Deleted member D3987]

i'm now curious about your post:

Does anyone have experience with strategies for coaching an athlete with short-term memory deficits?
E. Paul W. Senior Research Investigator in Biostatistics at University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

I'm hoping someone can suggest strategies for coaching an athlete with short-term memory deficits. The athlete in question is a trampolinist. His skills and positions are very good, and he can do level 6 and 7 compulsory routines. However, he can forget where he is in his routine. He can forget which pass he is doing on double mini. When he makes an error it frustrates him, and I don't have a good library of strategies for helping him through this. We'd like to keep him in the sport. It's one of the things he can actually do and do fairly well.

Thanks

Paul

 

[Turgidson]

That is his diagnosis. He has a learning disability called short-term memory deficit.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

maybe something from an occupational therapist can help here. i have never come across this condition.

 

[fuzi]

I know nothing about this, but I wonder if it is possible to get whole routine into long term memory. Ie- not thinking about individual skills followed by individual skills, but rather how one skill lands and transitions into the next all as one part. Does that make any sense?

Alternatively, what's the coaching deduction? In women's JO it's 0.20 for technical verbal cues with no specific deduction for other things that could be cues (like claps or snaps). It might be worth the deduction for telling him what to do next or worth coming up with a hand signal or auditory signal to remind him what's next.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

the short term and long term parts of the brain i believe are separate neuro systems. so, that is a great question above.

 

[gymgal]

I would start by asking the parents to consult with his specialty team at school. They have likely dealt with this with him for several years and will have strategies that work. Speech therapist would be able to help if it's visual/verbal he needs. The OT can help with motor memory. Chances are you will need to work on both.

 

[Turgidson]

Lots of good responses here.

We think of short term memory as this uniform zone where stuff sits waiting to be used, to be placed in long-term memory, or be discarded. Maybe it's not so uniform.... Someone on another forum had suggested song or rhyme. In short term memory, perhaps song isn't the same as speech isn't the same as do. And yes, this puts it right in realm of occupational therapy.

The kid already has his routines in long term memory, and he has to pull them out to make use of them. The trick is, I guess, to get them to stay resident long enough to get through. Pulling a song out of long term memory might be more effective than the verbal list. The kid is musically talented, so this is not a stretch.

 

[Deleted member D3987]

this is fascinating.

 

[Invisible Duck]

I would second the suggestion for making a song or rhyme. Singing uses a different part of the brain to speech. Often when stroke patients (for example) loose the ability to talk they can still sing and can use this to help them learn to talk and understand speech again. The other option would be to create a story out of the routine and allocate each skill a part in the story or use the words of the skill in the story. Although this may take too long for something that happens as quickly tramp routine.

Does he have trouble learning the routines or just in performing them once he has learnt them?

Another option would be to do lots of visual imagery. He could have the skills written down in order and go thought the list visualizing each skill and the transition. There is research to show that visualization uses the same areas of the motor cortex as actually performing a skill. This might help build up his muscle memory. Or you could record him doing the routine and have him watch it regularly or maybe just before he competes? Seeing yourself do something can also help with memory. He could practice the actions/part of the actions on the ground in front of a mirror too, that might help?

Does he utilize chunking? Breaking the routine up into smaller parts? Eg. If I wanted to remember the number 1726070 I would say seventeen, twenty six, zero, seventy. Not one, seven, two.... Etc.

the suggestion to find out what he does at school is also very good, he probably already has some good strategies that can be tweaked for gymnastics.

Good luck!!