Spaced Retrieval

With this memory technique you can get somebody with a poor memory to learn almost any small bit of information. Even people with huge memory difficulties can learn if you use this technique.
A man I knew had an appalling memory problem following a stroke. He had been in hospital for about three months and had learned the name of only one member of staff in that time. He had learned her name because it was written on the board next to his name. All the other staff had been telling him their names many times a day, telling him where he was and what had happened to him. Despite this constant repetition nothing seemed to stick. Within five minutes I had taught him my name and one day later when the nurses checked he still knew my name. This is how it is done.
The secret is, you forget about repeatedly telling the person the bit of information, instead you get them to tell you. I initially said “My name is Paul Whitby”. I then asked him to actively recall this by following up quickly with the question “What is my name?”. Because the man’s very short term memory was still working he was able to correctly respond “Paul Whitby”. I then left it a few seconds and asked him again, “What is my name?” and again he could reply correctly. We now had two correct recalls or retrievals from his memory. The important thing in this technique is this getting the person to tell you the right information repeatedly. So, ten seconds later I repeated the question, then at twenty seconds, forty seconds, one minute and at two minutes.
If the person makes an error, you gently correct them and then reduce the interval before you next question them to the one  before they made the mistake. I.e. if the person makes an error after two minutes delay you tell them the correct answer and ask them again after one minute. If that goes well you ask again after two minutes, and so forth.
You should continue this process up to ten minutes delay initially and this will give you an idea of how well the person with a poor memory can learn. With experience you should find out just how long the process needs to go on.

Example:

An American psychologist tells how a carer used to get repeatedly questioned all the way to the Day Centre by her forgetful mother. “Where are we going?” was asked nearly every minute for the forty-minute trip. Then, one day before they got in the car, the daughter told her mother “Today we are off to the Day Centre. Where are we going?”. Mother looked a bit puzzled but replied correctly. The daughter repeated the question a few more times at slightly longer intervals.  Very shortly mother knew the answer so well she was beginning to get annoyed with the repeated questioning from her daughter!  The rest of the trip passed without mother asking again “Where are we going?” A small achievement but one that turned the car trip from a nightmare into a pleasant experience.