Acknowledgements: This research was funded by a Research Award from the Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences, London South Bank University. Thank you to Himisha Parmar for assistance with data collection. Our thanks also go to the students and teachers from the following schools that were kind enough to participate: The Vines School; Lady Margaret Primary School; Piper Way School; Oaklands School; and Southfields Community College. Short-term memory coding and ID 2 Abstract Children with

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... ual disabilities (ID) and peers matched for mental (MA) and chronological age (CA) carried out picture memory span tasks with phonologically similar, visually similar, long, or non-similar named items, to examine visual and verbal coding strategies. The CA group showed effects consistent with advanced "verbal" memory coding (phonological similarity and word length effects). Neither the ID nor MA groups showed evidence for memory coding strategies. However, children in these groups with mental ages above 6 years showed significant visual similarity and word length effects, broadly consistent with an intermediate stage of "dual" visual and verbal coding. These results suggest developmental progressions in memory coding strategies are independent of ID status and in line with mental age. Short-term memory coding and ID 3 The purpose of the current study was to examine memory coding on a pictorial memory span task in children with and without ID, within the framework of the working memory model devised by Baddeley and Hitch (1974; Baddeley, 1986; 2007 ). This influential model proposes a number of components with specialised and interacting roles. Overall attentional control is provided by the "central executive". Two subsidiary "slave systems" provide active storage for speech-based information (the "phonological loop") and visual/spatial information (the visuospatial sketchpad). The "episodic buffer" (Baddeley, 2000) acts as a "back-up store" and integrates information from different modalities and systems, including visual/verbal modalities and long-term knowledge. This paper concerns short-term memory coding and the strategic conversion of visual, but nameable, input into phonological codes. According to the framework of the working memory model (Baddeley, 1986; 2007) , items that are spoken have automatic access to the "phonological store", one of the two components of the phonological loop. Phonological, or verbal, codes are created by the input itself. Visual items that can be named (e.g. pictures, written words, written letters) require an additional phase of phonological recoding to "convert" the visually presented material into a phonological code. Once this code has been created, the material can be stored in the phonological loop and verbally rehearsed to avoid decay in this timelimited store, just as automatically entered material can be. This latter, "indirect" route requires the individual to adopt a verbal recoding strategy by using the "articulatory control process". Generally, unless blocked from using this strategy by articulatory supression, adults will use phonological coding to recall visually presented nameable stimuli. There are many demonstrations of phonological similarity effects for similar sounding written letters or words in adults, indicative of this verbal recoding (e.g. Short-term memory coding and ID