Comorbid Learning Difficulties in Reading and Mathematics: The Role of Intelligence and In-Class Attentive Behavior

Abstract

The goal was to identify the domain-general cognitive abilities and academic attitudes that are common and unique to reading and mathematics learning difficulties that in turn will have implications for intervention development. Across seventh and eighth grade, 315 (155 boys) adolescents ( M age = 12.75 years) were administered intelligence, verbal short-term and working memory, and visuospatial memory, attention, and ability measures, along with measures of English and mathematics attitudes and mathematics anxiety. Teachers reported on students’ in-class attentive behavior. A combination of Bayesian and multi-level models revealed that intelligence and in-class attentive behavior were common predictors of reading accuracy, reading fluency, and mathematics achievement. Verbal short-term memory was more critical for reading accuracy and fluency, whereas spatial ability and mathematics self-efficacy were more critical for mathematics achievement. The combination of intelligence and in-class attentive behavior discriminated typically achieving students from students with comorbid ( D = 2.44) or mathematics ( D = 1.59) learning difficulties, whereas intelligence, visuospatial attention, and verbal short-term memory discriminated typically achieving students from students with reading disability ( D = 1.08). The combination of in-class attentive behavior, verbal short-term memory, and mathematics self-efficacy discriminated students with mathematics difficulties from their peers with reading difficulties ( D = 1.16). Given the consistent importance of in-class attentive behavior, we conducted post hoc follow-up analyses. The results suggested that students with poor in-class attentive behavior were disengaging from academic learning which in turn contributed to their risk of learning difficulties.

Executive functioning skills and (low) mathematical achievement in primary and secondary school

“…Finally, we expected that the contribution of WM would extend across the three grades (Peng et al, 2018) and could be related to verbal tasks to a greater extent (Cirino et al, 2015;Cai et al, 2013). Furthermore, we predicted that higher fluid intelligence could act as a protective factor against MD across the three grades (Geary et al (2020). Furthermore, slower processing speed could constitute a risk factor for presenting MD in situations in which the selection tasks involve arithmetic, as in grade 2 (e.g., Cirino et al, 2015;Vukovic & Siegel, 2010).…”

“…The role of intelligence in MD is not clearly defined because most studies rule out students with low IQ in their initial screenings (see Agostini et al, 2022, for a review). Nevertheless, some studies have reported differences between TA and MD students on verbal and nonverbal intelligence tasks (e.g., Andersson, 2010;Geary et al, 2020; but see Andersson, 2008) and that it was a key factor in classifying students in terms of mathematics achievement (Geary et al, 2020). In addition, during the early primary grades, the importance of processing speed in the acquisition of arithmetic skills has been highlighted (e.g., Bull & Johnston, 1997;Fuchs et al, 2006), and the low processing speed of students with MD has been repeatedly reported (e.g., Cirino et al, 2015;Vukovic & Siegel, 2010; but see Chan & Ho, 2010).…”

Kurangnya Keaktifan Belajar Siswa pada Materi Pengolahan Data (Mean, Median, Modus) di SDN 106811 Kecamatan Percut Sei Tuan, Deli Serdang, Sumatera Utara

“…Kesulitan atau faktor belajar yang dialami siswa dapat disebabkan oleh faktor internal dan faktor eksternal (Geary, 2020;Hamukwaya, 2021;Hebert, 2019;Rodríguez, 2019). Faktor internal adalah faktor yang berasal dari dalam diri siswa, misalnya kesehatan, bakat minat, motivasi, intelegensi dan sebagainya.…”

“Calculating faces”: can face perception paradigms enrich dyscalculia research?

“…Little research has directly compared the cognitive abilities in dyscalculia and dyslexia. The studies targeted the investigation of symbolic and non-symbolic numerical magnitude, phonological awareness, attention, verbal short-term memory, visuospatial memory, lexical access, and working memory ( Geary et al, 2020 ; Grant et al, 2020 ). Peters et al (2020) demonstrated that children with dyscalculia had a marked deterioration in spatial skills in comparison to their typically developing peers.…”