Cognitive load theory meets trauma-informed practice

 

Image source: ChatGPT

One of the defining aspects of education is the number of narratives running at any one time. It can be quite noisy. Sometimes these narratives are obviously connected (like explicit teaching and accountability for student outcomes) and at other times they seem to sit in parallel universes. In this blogpost, I want to consider an example of the latter scenario: two education topics that are both highly current but, as far as I can tell, are not usually given a shared platform: cognitive load theory (CLT) and trauma informed classroom practice.

Readers of this blog are likely to be familiar with Professor John Sweller’s CLT. It is a testable (and tested) model that represents the challenging passage of biologically secondary knowledge from fleeting exposure in-the-moment to consolidation in long-term memory.  

To back up for a moment, biologically secondary knowledge is essentially that which children attend school to acquire. It is a term that stems from the work of Professor David Geary at the University of Missouri. Geary and his co-worker Daniel Berch have written extensively about the idea that children learn some things as a result of evolutionary pre-wiring and early immersive experience. Learning to walk is a good example. Acquiring oral language is often cited as another biologically primary skill, which it is, with some caveats, that I’ve written about previously.

Notwithstanding my oral language caveats, the biologically primary vs secondary distinction is a helpful way of thinking about children’s learning, especially at school. Human executive functions (higher-order skills such as paying attention, planning, organising, self-monitoring and thinking consequentially) are very much under construction throughout childhood and adolescence, not fully maturing until the early-to-mid-twenties, when final myelination occurs in the prefrontal regions of the brain.

Biologically secondary skills include, but are not limited to, reading, writing and spelling; learning and applying increasingly complex mathematical concepts and processes; learning to play a musical instrument; and attaining prowess in golf or tennis. These are all things that the majority of humans can learn, at least to some extent, but need instruction and practice in order to do so.  

So schools have a challenge and an opportunity:

A large part of the raison d’être of schools is teaching biologically secondary skills to humans whose learning software is a work in progress.  

Children and adolescents are not especially good at paying attention, planning, organising, self-monitoring and thinking consequentially. We could think of these as the “Big Executive Five” (BEF) in child development more broadly and in education specifically. Of course, these skills fluctuate according to motivation and other factors, but parents and teachers know that children cannot be left to their own devices to do things they have been asked to do (tidy their room, complete a page of writing etc) because their brains cannot harness the BEF without reminders, scaffolding, and buffering from adults.

As the image below (created by me via ChatGPT) shows, during childhood and adolescence, the BEF are:

• Under construction 
• Fragile 
• Inconsistent within and between students 
• Difficult to harness in distracting learning environments
• Frustrating for adults, for all of the reasons listed above

 

Let’s take attention and look at it separately. We commonly ask students to pay attention. We are asking them to put some attentional dollars on the table – to focus and somehow screen out irrelevant internal and external stimuli. Internal stimuli might include hunger, thirst, a full bladder, and thoughts about something upsetting that happened at home that morning, on the way to school, or in the playground.  This is difficult for children to do (it remains challenging for many adults and is not helped by the constant interruptions associated with device use). In human brains we have a great paradox – an incomprehensibly complex organ that can only do one thing at a time (see the work of Professor Dan Willingham on this. So, paying attention is difficult, yet attention is the gateway to new learning. We’ve all had experience of not taking something in, simply because we were hearing words but not listening to them – we were not putting attentional dollars on the table.

In order for students to acquire new knowledge and skills in the classroom, they must harness their fragile attention and other executive skills (or more precisely, have them harnessed for them, by an adult). To this end, their educators are helped by understanding the Information Processing Model (below) which I adapted for this 2026 text from the 1968 work (yes, we have known about this for nearly 60 years) of Atkinson and Shiffrin. The version below is a further adaption again.

As you can see in this model, children experience a great deal of sensory input in the average classroom. This is mainly through the visual and auditory systems, but children who are restless are also creating their own kinaesthetic stimulation, e.g., by tapping fingers on the desk, rocking their chair back and forth, and in some cases, playing with so-called “fidget toys”. Visual stimulation comes from colourful posters and decorations on walls and hanging from the ceiling. Auditory stimulation comes from peoples’ voices (the teacher’s and those of other children). In some cases, there will be music in the background or audible from another classroom and there may be traffic, leaf blowers, lawn mowers, school bells, and announcements over the public address system. The signal-to-noise ratio can be both unfavourable and unpredictable in classrooms. 

This is all extremely challenging for fragile attentional systems. A reminder that the Information Processing Model was published in 1968. The fact that policy makers and education architects continue to design open-plan learning spaces makes a mockery of any argument that contemporary education is evidence-based.

As you can see via the orange arrow in my adaptation of the Information Processing Model, adults’ frontal lobes need to do much of the heavy lifting in classrooms, to compensate for the fact that children’s immature executive skills will naturally conspire to make it difficult for them to focus and sustain attention. I say “naturally” because this is developmentally completely typical and expected. It is not a sign of disorder or neurodiversity, though conditions such as ADHD will make these skills even more fragile. Although focusing attention is difficult for trauma-affected children it must be remembered that it is first and foremost, difficult for all children. Trauma makes it worse.

We do not learn biologically secondary knowledge and skills that we cannot focus attention on. Teacher-led practice and rehearsal is the “fix” for the fact that children’s brains cannot do this complex work on their own.

I have blogged previously about the fact that some instructional approaches (project-based/discovery learning in noisy classrooms with students seated around tables, facing and distracting each other, promote busy-work and “engagement”. Such classrooms privilege engagement over the vital but more challenging work of focusing children’s brains on acquiring complex new knowledge and shifting it to long-term memory where it can be stored, retrieved for usage and added to over time.  

What does all of this have to do with children who have been impacted by trauma?

First, we need to look at this word “trauma”. In the child maltreatment literature, trauma is sometimes used as an umbrella-term to refer to the experience of various forms of neglect and/or abuse. Neglect is the most common form of maltreatment, and it not infrequently co-occurs with abuse of various forms. You can read more about the different types of maltreatment here. But trauma can also refer to specific experiences, ranging from the sudden loss of a key attachment figure to displacement because of war. Some children experience vicarious trauma, e.g., when they witness domestic violence that is directed to a parent. Unfortunately, the term trauma is overused by some, to refer to situations that are difficult or challenging, but are part of everyday life and surmountable with appropriate support and encouragement. Notwithstanding this caveat, because the word “trauma” appears in the term trauma-informed teaching, I will use it here to refer to the wide-ranging forms of childhood adversity that go beyond everyday challenges and frequently (though not invariably) bring children into contact with government agencies and human services personnel.

Precise figures on rates of trauma-exposure are not available. We have proxy measures, such as the number of substantiations in a child protection system, but many children’s experiences of adversity fly under the radar, and we know that substantiations are an under-estimate of true prevalence-rates, both in terms of the number of children they represent and the types of childhood adversities they experience.

So, while teachers may know about specific children in their class who are the subject of child protection orders, such children are the tip of a bigger iceberg. There will always be more whose everyday home lives cause them to feel anxious, fearful, unsafe, and in some cases, hypervigilant. This may reflect a chronic set of circumstances, or it may be situational. Either way, there will be children arriving at every school, every day, with attentional systems that are in a baseline state of dysregulation, so they are not primed and ready for learning.

No-one learns well when anxiety, fear and mistrust hijack their brain. This applies to both children and adults. We also don’t learn well when we are tired or hungry, which trauma-affected children often are. It is pleasing that many schools address the hunger issue via breakfast clubs, but tiredness is much more challenging to manage in the school day. Allowing children to sleep in a beanbag while others learn might address their short-term physiological need, but it falls well short on their long-term learning needs. There is no easy fix on this one.

Much has been written about trauma-informed classroom teaching in the last two decades and it has been pleasing to see the translation of knowledge from child development and neurobiology research into classroom practice. In my view, some of this translation work has, however, over-emphasised the (incontrovertible) importance of ensuring that children feel safe in classrooms and the building of positive relationships while under-emphasising the fact that their learning needs must remain a central focus of the educator’s classroom practice. We must remember that educators are not social workers. Applying evidence-based Tier 1 instruction in a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS*) framework, however, should go a long way towards addressing both the academic and wellbeing needs of all students, regardless of what their teachers know about the adversities faced by them outside the school gate.

Let’s look at what published guidelines (e.g., see here and here) advise about what is important in classrooms for trauma-affected children and how teaching that is informed by cognitive science can assist:

What trauma-affected children need	How explicit teaching informed by learning science / cognitive load theory addresses this need
A reliable sense that the classroom is a safe, supportive environment in which they do not need to be hyper-vigilant to threat (perceived or real).	Learning spaces should be stand-alone classrooms, not open-plan environments with inadequate sound dampening and constant visual distraction from other classrooms. Children should be seated in rows, facing the teacher when they are being taught new knowledge and skills. Social seating is for social activities. It lends itself to distraction of all forms. Environmental visual distractions (colourful posters, banners, bunting etc) should be minimised and placed at the back of the room.
A sense of safety and trust that adults in the room are “in charge” of learning and behaviour.	Classrooms should be calm, orderly and predictable learning spaces, as a reflection of taught behaviour expectations and adult-led limit-setting with clear, consistent and fair consequences. Positive behaviours are noted and praised. Instruction should be educator-led. Educators take responsibility for the teaching of new content. This is not left to chance via discovery learning.
A sense that as far as possible, they are not going to be caught off-guard by shifts in tasks and activities.	Classoom routines should be predictable within and between teaching spaces. Educators use known attention signals, e.g., a “clap-back”, a bell, or a key phrase, such as “one two three, eyes on me” to gain students' attention.
A sense that the teacher expects them to learn.	High expectations of and for all learners regardless of starting point are a driving force for all instruction and support.
Optimal and ethical use of their learning time.	Device use is minimal to non-existent. Except in timetabled IT classes, technology has little to no intrinsic learning benefit in classrooms. Pseudoscientific tools and practices are not in use (e.g., Learning Styles / Multiple Intelligences Inventories; Brain Gym; Whole Language / Balanced Literacy approaches to reading instruction; discovery learning for maths). Well-meaning but potentially harmful whole-school mental health interventions are not used. Instructional time is valued, respected, and optimised. Learning objectives are known and checked against. Busy work is not accepted as a substitute for learning.
A sense of self-efficacy when encountering and consolidating new knowledge and skills.	New tasks are broken into manageable “chunks” so as not to overload the novice learner. Instruction is educator-led, via the gradual release of responsibility (I do; we do; you do). Spaced retrieval practice and daily review provide opportunities for students to consolidate new knowledge and skills into long-term memory.
A sense of safety in situations that involve transitions.	Transitions into and out of the classroom are quiet, predictable and calm. Children are taught how to collect their belongings, line up, and move in and out of teaching spaces. In some schools, this is done in silence, to reduce disruptions associated with noise and minimise surreptitious bullying.
A sense of self-efficacy for contributing to classroom activities and discourse.	Mini-whiteboards are used for formative assessment and to trigger re-teaching where indicated. Every child is expected and supported to participate, with or without accommodations and additional support. Turn-and-talk activities are routinely practiced and used, with careful thought given to seating arrangements and student pairing. Non-volunteers are called on (so-called “cold-calling” – better described as “warm calling”) to respond to carefully framed questions about material that has been taught. This ensures that all children participate in classroom learning, with adjustments and accommodations if needed, to support this.

Just like their classroom peers, trauma-affected children have naturally immature executive function skills. However, they bring the additional burdens of dysregulation, anxiety, and hypervigilance into the classroom, all of which may manifest as inattention, poor motivation to learn, and/or reluctance to attempt tasks. It is not always possible (or even necessary) for educators to know the basis of these presentations, but it is important that their classroom instruction is designed to by-pass both the inbuilt threats to learning and the additional mental cargo carried by trauma-affected children.

Self-regulation and the ability to form and maintain relationships are the essential platforms on which effective learning can occur. Platforms with nothing of substance on them fall short, however, in meeting the educational needs of trauma-affected children.

The principles articulated here apply to optimal learning for all children, including those who are neurodivergent. It should be remembered too that neurodivergence itself is a risk for maltreatment, so some children arrive at school with this double burden.

Applying optimal evidence-based classroom instruction for all is the most efficient and equitable way of tilting the learning playing field in favour of children who are starting from behind because of childhood trauma. Self-regulation, though inherently desirable, is not simply an end in itself. It is the means by which children can achieve academically and form and maintain relationships. In so doing, there’s a good chance they enable those around them to learn too. This in turn promotes everyone’s wellbeing – students’ and educators’. As they say over at The Reading League, a rising tide lifts all boats.   

In summary, it might look something like this, with or without known trauma in play:

 

References and additional resources

Atkinson, R.C. & Shiffrin, R.M. (1968). Human memory: A proposed system and its control processes. In I.K.W. Spence and J.T. Spence (Eds.), The psychology of learning and motivation: II, Academic Press (1968), 10.1016/S0079-7421(08)60422-3

Bowen, C. & Snow, P., with Brandon, P. (2026). Evidence-based support for children and young people with additional needs: The Roadmap.  J&R Publishing

Snow, P. (2020). Psychosocial adversity in early childhood and language and literacy skills in adolescence: The role of Speech Language Pathology in prevention, policy and practice. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 6(2), 253-261.   https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2020_PERSP-20-00120  OPEN ACCESS

Vander Kolk, B.A. (2003).The neurobiology of childhood trauma and abuse. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 12, 293–317. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1056 4993(03)00003-8

 

*MTSS – See also Schumann, J. (2026). Beyond the Tiers: Reclaiming the Promise of MTSS OPEN ACCESS

© Pamela Snow (2026)