Phonological Processing, Visuospatial Skills, and Pattern Understanding in Chinese Developmental Dyscalculia

A number of previous studies have identified cognitive deficits in developmental dyscalculia (DD). Yet, most of these studies were in alphabetic languages, whereas few of them examined Chinese DD. Here, we conducted a study aiming to determine the cognitive factors associated with DD in Chinese children. Five candidate cognitive factors of DD—phonological retrieval, phonological awareness, visual–spatial attention, spatial thinking, and pattern understanding—were studied in the present study. A total of 904 Chinese children aged between 8 and 11 years participated in this study. From the sample, 97 children were identified with DD through tests of arithmetic ability, and 93 age and IQ–matched typically developing children were selected as controls. Logistic regression analysis revealed that phonological retrieval, pattern understanding, visual–spatial attention, and phonological awareness significantly predicted DD, whereas spatial thinking failed to do so. Results of logistic relative weights analysis showed that all five factors explained statistically significant amounts of variance in arithmetic scores. Phonological retrieval had the most influence on DD, followed by pattern understanding, visual–spatial attention, phonological awareness, and spatial thinking. These findings have important clinical implications for diagnosis and intervention of Chinese DD.