Mathematics difficulties in extremely preterm children: evidence of a specific deficit in basic mathematics processing

Abstract

Background: extremely preterm (eP, <26 wk gestation) children have been observed to have poor academic achievement in comparison to their term-born peers, especially in mathematics. This study investigated potential underlying causes of this difficulty. Methods: a total of 219 eP participants were compared with 153 term-born control children at 11 y of age. all children were assessed by a psychologist on a battery of standardized cognitive tests and a number estimation test assessing children's numerical representations. results: eP children underperformed in all tests in comparison with the term controls (the majority of Ps < 0.001). Different underlying relationships between performance on the number estimation test and mathematical achievement were found in eP as compared with control children. That is, even after controlling for cognitive ability, a relationship between number representations and mathematical performance persisted for eP children only (eP: r = 0.346, n = 186, P < 0.001; control: r = 0.095, n = 146, P = 0.256). conclusion: Interventions for eP children may target improving children's numerical representations in order to subsequently remediate their mathematical skills.

Mathematics difficulties in children born very preterm: current research and future directions

“…However, this was alongside domain-general simultaneous and sequential processing skills, reading ability and visuospatial skills, which were also significant predictors of achievement 66. In fact, these domain-general skills explained substantially more variance in mathematics scores for the extremely preterm population compared with controls (70% vs 48%, respectively).…”

“…Third, as the vast majority of previous studies have focused predominantly on general cognitive processes or used very brief measures of specific mathematical skills,66 it is difficult to identify the cognitive mechanisms that underpin VP children's difficulties. Future studies should explore multiple domain-specific components27 39 and concurrently investigate domain-general cognitive skills in order to quantify the relative contributions of these factors to curriculum-based achievement.…”

Learning disabilities among extremely preterm children without neurosensory impairment: Comorbidity, neuropsychological profiles and scholastic outcomes

“…In contrast to reading and literacy, group differences in mathematics attainment are frequently not accounted for by low IQ [5,6,10,14]. Other neuropsychological processes such as attention, executive function, sensori-motor and visuo-spatial skills contribute to scholastic attainment in typically developing and preterm children [7,10,[15][16][17][18] and may be core cognitive deficits in this population [19][20][21].…”

Nature and origins of mathematics difficulties in very preterm children: a different etiology than developmental dyscalculia

“…However, as general cognitive deficits accounted for the majority of variance, this suggests that these may play an important role and that there may be an interaction between the two skill domains (19). Crucially, as no studies have measured general cognitive skills concurrently with numerical representations and a range of specific mathematics skills (18), the cognitive bases of preterm children's mathematical difficulties remain unknown.…”