Children's Arithmetical Difficulties: Contributions from Processing Speed, Item Identification, and Short-Term Memory

Bull, Rebecca; Johnston, Robert Mackenzie

doi:10.1006/jecp.1996.2358

Cited by 316 publications

(361 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…In the earlier described study of Hitch and McAuley (1991), children with MD and normal children were matched on IQ and the children with MD still evidenced a deficit in counting span and in the speed of implicit counting. In all, it appears that the relation between LD and working memory deficits is more complex than can be captured by simple digit span measures and future studies will need to take this into consideration (Bull & Johnston, 1997;Bull, Johnston, & Roy, 1999).…”

Section: Supporting Cognitive Competenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical and Arithmetical Cognition: A Longitudinal Study of Process and Concept Deficits in Children with Learning Disability

Geary

Hamson

Hoard

2000

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

547

542

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Based on the stability and level of performance on standard achievement tests in first and second grade (mean age in first grade ϭ 82 months), children with IQ scores in the low-average to high-average range were classified as learning disabled (LD) in mathematics (MD), reading (RD), or both (MD/RD). These children (n ϭ 42), a group of children who showed variable achievement test performance across grades (n ϭ 16), and a control group of academically normal peers (n ϭ 35) were administered a series of experimental and psychometric tasks. The tasks assessed number comprehension and production skills, counting knowledge, arithmetic skills, working memory, the ease of activation of phonetic representations of words and numbers, and spatial abilities. The children with variable achievement test performance did not differ from the academically normal children in any cognitive domain, whereas the children in the LD groups showed specific patterns of cognitive deficit, above and beyond the influence of IQ. Discussion focuses on the similarities and differences across the groups of LD children.

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Section: Supporting Cognitive Competenciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical and Arithmetical Cognition: A Longitudinal Study of Process and Concept Deficits in Children with Learning Disability

Geary

Hamson

Hoard

2000

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

547

542

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Some studies have attributed individual differences in mathematical problem solving (particularly arithmetic) to inefficiencies in the utilization of the phonological system (e.g., Furst & Hitch, 2000;Gathercole & Pickering, 2000;Gathercole et al, 2004;Geary, Brown, & Samaranayake, 1991;Siegel & Ryan, 1989;Swanson & Sachse-Lee, 2001), with the role of the phonological loop being to encode and retain verbal codes used for counting and/or retain interim solutions. However, a number of studies of children with poor mathematical skills have revealed no significant limitations in verbal short-term memory, or limitations being due to a third factor such as processing speed or co-occurring reading difficulties (e.g., Bull & Johnston, 1997;Geary et al, 1999;Geary et al, 2000).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Short-Term Memory, Working Memory, and Executive Functioning in Preschoolers: Longitudinal Predictors of Mathematical Achievement at Age 7 Years

Bull

Espy

Wiebe

2008

Developmental Neuropsychology

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1,326

990

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“…In any case, a systematic assessment of the potential mechanisms underlying group differences on the number line task requires simultaneous measurement of working memory and speed of processing. This is because in addition to deficits on measures of working memory, children with MLD process information more slowly than TA children (Bull & Johnston, 1997;Swanson & Sachse-Lee, 2001). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of Number Line Representations in Children With Mathematical Learning Disability

Geary

Hoard

Nugent

et al. 2008

Developmental Neuropsychology

354

262

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Children with a mathematical learning disability (MLD, n = 19) and low achieving (LA, n = 43) children were identified using mathematics achievement scores below the 11th percentile and between the 11th and 25th percentiles, respectively. A control group of typically achieving (TA, n = 50) children was also identified. Number line and speed of processing tasks were administered in 1st and 2nd grade and a working memory battery in 1st grade. In both grades, the MLD children were less accurate in their number line placements and more reliant on a natural numbermagnitude representational system to make these placements than were TA children. The TA children were more reliant on the school-taught linear system in both grades. The performance of the LA children was similar to that of the MLD children in first grade and to the TA children in second. The central executive component of working memory contributed to across-grade improvements in number line performance and to group differences in this performance.Several large-scale population-based, prospective studies and a number of smaller-scale studies have consistently found that between 5% and 10% of children and adolescents will experience a substantive learning deficit-not attributable to low cognitive ability-in at least one area of mathematics before graduating from high school (Badian, 1983;Barbaresi, Katusic, Colligan, Weaver, & Jacobsen 2005;Ostad, 1998;Shalev, 2007;Shalev, Manor, & Gross-Tsur, 2005). These individuals are considered to have a mathematical learning disability (MLD), and are joined by another 5% and perhaps many more children and adolescents who experience more mild and circumscribed learning difficulties in mathematics (for recent reviews see Berch & Mazzocco, 2007). The mathematics achievement of this latter group of low achieving children (LA) is below expectations based on their cognitive ability and reading achievement, and the mechanisms contributing to their difficulties with mathematics learning may differ from those underlying MLD (Geary, Hoard, Byrd-Craven, Nugent, & Numtee, 2007;Murphy, Mazzocco, Hanich, & Early, 2007). The central executive component of working memory has been implicated as a core mechanism underlying differences in the mathematical cognition of children with MLD but not their LA peers, but this remains to be confirmed. Moreover, the mathematical areas in which these groups may be similar or different are not well understood. HHS Public Access Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptAuthor Manuscript Author ManuscriptChildren with MLD have deficits in a wide range of basic mathematical domains, including a delayed understanding of counting concepts (Geary, Bow-Thomas, & Yao, 1992), difficulties remembering arithmetic facts (Geary, 1993;Jordan, Hanich, & Kaplan, 2003;Jordan & Montani, 1997), and poor conceptual knowledge of rational numbers (Mazzocco & Devlin, in press). The delayed learning of LA children, in contrast, may center on basic numerical representations, including the number line (Geary et al., 20...

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Children's Arithmetical Difficulties: Contributions from Processing Speed, Item Identification, and Short-Term Memory

Cited by 316 publications

References 43 publications

Numerical and Arithmetical Cognition: A Longitudinal Study of Process and Concept Deficits in Children with Learning Disability

Numerical and Arithmetical Cognition: A Longitudinal Study of Process and Concept Deficits in Children with Learning Disability

Short-Term Memory, Working Memory, and Executive Functioning in Preschoolers: Longitudinal Predictors of Mathematical Achievement at Age 7 Years

Development of Number Line Representations in Children With Mathematical Learning Disability

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