scholarly journals Numerical magnitude processing deficits in children with mathematical difficulties are independent of intelligence

2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (11) ◽  
pp. 2603-2613 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Brankaer ◽  
Pol Ghesquière ◽  
Bert De Smedt
2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 524-532
Author(s):  
Isabella Starling-Alves ◽  
Annelise Júlio-Costa ◽  
Ricardo José de Moura ◽  
Vitor Geraldi Haase

ABSTRACT It is still debated if the main deficit in mathematical difficulties (MD) is nonsymbolic or symbolic numerical magnitude processing. Objectives: In the present study, our main goal was to investigate nonsymbolic and symbolic numerical magnitude processing in MD and the relationship between these abilities and arithmetic. Methods: The Brazilian school-age children with MD completed a nonsymbolic and a symbolic numerical magnitude comparison task and an arithmetic task. We compared their performance with a group of children with typical achievement (TA) and investigated the association between numerical magnitude processing and arithmetic with a series of regression analyses. Results: Results indicated that children with MD had low performance in the nonsymbolic numerical magnitude comparison task. Performance in both nonsymbolic and symbolic numerical magnitude comparison tasks predicted arithmetic abilities in children with TA, but not in children with MD. Conclusions: These results indicate that children with MD have difficulties in nonsymbolic numerical magnitude processing, and do not engage basic numerical magnitude representations to solve arithmetic.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. e0151045 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kiran Vanbinst ◽  
Daniel Ansari ◽  
Pol Ghesquière ◽  
Bert De Smedt

2017 ◽  
Vol 51 (6) ◽  
pp. 600-611 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice De Visscher ◽  
Marie-Pascale Noël ◽  
Mauro Pesenti ◽  
Valérie Dormal

Numerous studies have tried to identify the core deficit of developmental dyscalculia (DD), mainly by assessing a possible deficit of the mental representation of numerical magnitude. Research in healthy adults has shown that numerosity, duration, and space share a partly common system of magnitude processing and representation. However, in DD, numerosity processing has until now received much more attention than the processing of other non-numerical magnitudes. To assess whether or not the processing of non-numerical magnitudes is impaired in DD, the performance of 15 adults with DD and 15 control participants was compared in four categorization tasks using numerosities, lengths, durations, and faces (as non-magnitude-based control stimuli). Results showed that adults with DD were impaired in processing numerosity and duration, while their performance in length and face categorization did not differ from controls’ performance. Our findings support the idea of a nonsymbolic magnitude deficit in DD, affecting numerosity and duration processing but not length processing.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lilan Chen ◽  
Yan Wang ◽  
Hongbo Wen

Although most deaf individuals could use sign language or sign/spoken language mix, hearing loss would still affect their language acquisition. Compensatory plasticity holds that the lack of auditory stimulation experienced by deaf individuals, such as congenital deafness, can be met by enhancements in visual cognition. And the studies of hearing individuals have showed that visual form perception is the cognitive mechanism that could explain the association between numerical magnitude processing and arithmetic computation. Therefore, we examined numerical magnitude processing and its contribution to arithmetical ability in deaf adolescents, and explored the differences between the congenital and acquired deafness. 112 deaf adolescents (58 congenital deafness) and 58 hearing adolescents performed a series of cognitive and mathematical tests, and it was found there was no significant differences between the congenital group and the hearing group, but congenital group outperformed acquired group in numerical magnitude processing (reaction time) and arithmetic computation. It was also found there was a close association between numerical magnitude processing and arithmetic computation in all deaf adolescents, and after controlling for the demographic variables (age, gender, onset of hearing loss) and general cognitive abilities (non-verbal IQ, processing speed, reading comprehension), numerical magnitude processing could predict arithmetic computation in all deaf adolescents but not in congenital group. The role of numerical magnitude processing (symbolic and non-symbolic) in deaf adolescents' mathematical performance should be paid attention in the training of arithmetical ability.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riikka Mononen ◽  
Markku Niemivirta ◽  
Johan Korhonen ◽  
Marcus Lindskog ◽  
Anna Tapola

We investigated the levels and changes in mathematics anxiety (MA), symbolic numerical magnitude processing (SNMP) and arithmetic skills, and how those changes are linked to each other. Children’s (n = 264) MA, SNMP and arithmetic skills were measured in Grade 1, and again in Grade 2, including also a mathematics performance test. All three constructs correlated significantly within each time point, and the rank-order stability over time was high, particularly in SNMP and arithmetic skills. By means of latent change score modeling, we found overall increases in SNMP and arithmetic skills over time, but not in MA. Most interestingly, changes in arithmetic skills and MA were correlated (i.e., steeper increase in arithmetic skills was linked with less steep increase in MA), as were changes in SNMP and arithmetic skills (i.e., improvement in SNMP was associated with improvement in arithmetic skills). Only the initial level of arithmetic skills and change in it predicted mathematics performance. The only gender difference, in favour of boys, was found in SNMP skills. The differential effects associated with MA (developmentally only linked with arithmetic skills) and gender (predicting only changes in SNMP) call for further longitudinal research on the different domains of mathematical skills.


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