We increase the 7 bit limit on short-term memory by the use of strategies.
What makes it truly amazing is that typically we are limited to approximately 7 bits of information for this short term memory process. We obviously do more by using various organizational strategies.
One important strategies is expectancy. Itās interesting that most computers have some of this now in the form of word prediction. You start to type something and the word appears before you finish.
Context and and particularly grammar are important features of expectancy which broaden our input capacity.
For a child (or adult) with severely limited short term memory (say 4 or less bits in information) and with few strategies to rely on, (e.g., poor grammar and/or a dearth of life experiences) decoding an oral sentence can be a significant problem.