Accelerating the early numeracy development of kindergartners with limited working memory skills through remedial education

The performance of elementary public and private school students pre and post phonological intervention

ABSTRACT Purpose: this study aims to compare the performance, pre and post phonological intervention, of 2nd year students in public and private education, with and without learning disabilities. Methods: 30 students from the 2nd year of elementary education, public and private participated in these study, distributed in: GI, GII and GIII, composed of 15 public school students, submitted to pre and post testing and phonological intervention; and GIV, GV and GVI, comprising 15 private school students, submitted to pre and post testing and phonological intervention. In the pre and post testing moment, the Linguistic Cognitive Skills Assessment Protocol Adaptive was performed. For the intervention, the phonological tasks of letter/sound relationship, analysis, synthesis and manipulation of phonemes and syllables were conducted. Results: there was a statistically significant performance for the students submitted to the phonological intervention program of the public and private education, in all skills analyzed. Conclusion: the intervention was effective in both scopes, public and private, however, private school students did better in a greater number of skills analyzed as compared to public school ones, suggesting the influence of the intervention associated with the stimuli offered in the process of schooling.

Dimensionality of Preschoolers' Informal Mathematical Abilities

Recent research examining children's early mathematical abilities has focused primarily on number and operations (e.g., counting, addition) with considerably less attention directed to the role of other possible dimensions of early mathematical abilities, such as, measurement, geometry, and patterning. The current study examined the dimensionality of informal mathematical abilities by conducting categorical confirmatory factor analysis (CCFA) using data from a large sample of preschool children from low-income families (N=1630; Mean age = 4.46 years, SD = .37) using the Child Math Assessment (CMA; Klein & Starkey, 2004). The best fitting model consisted of four factors of Number and Operations, Measurement, Geometry, and Patterning, with the Number and Operations factor explaining common variance in three first-order factors of Numbering, Operations, and Relations. These findings support the view that informal mathematical knowledge is a multi-dimensional construct comprised of each of these separable dimensions. Additionally, a Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes model was used to determine if mathematical ability differed for male and female preschoolers on each of the four factors or on each of the 35 items of the CMA. Results showed no differences for mathematical abilities between males and females at this age. Future research and curricular implications are discussed.

Early numeracy skills in preschool-aged children: a review of neurocognitive findings and implications for assessment and intervention

OBJECTIVES

The goals are to (1) provide a review of the typical and atypical development of early numeracy; (2) present what is known about the neurocognitive underpinnings of early numeracy; and (3) discuss the implications for early assessment and intervention.

METHOD

Studies on the development of typical and atypical early numeracy are reviewed with a particular focus on longitudinal findings including those from our work on spina bifida myelomeningocele. Implications of this research for assessment are presented. The paper ends with a discussion of early math interventions.

RESULTS

Learning to count, identify numbers, and compare and manipulate quantities are key early numeracy skills. These are powerful predictors of school-age mathematical learning and performance. General neurocognitive abilities such as working memory and language, are also important for the development of early numeracy. It is recommended that early assessment for risk of mathematical learning difficulties include tests of both early number knowledge and key neurocognitive abilities. Math-specific interventions are most effective for improving early numeracy. There is currently little evidence that training of general cognitive functions transfers to mathematical learning.

CONCLUSION

Understanding the development of early numeracy skills and their neurocognitive predictors offer important insights into early assessment and intervention for children at risk for or with mathematical learning difficulties.

Eficácia de um programa de intervenção fonológica em escolares de risco para a dislexia

RESUMO: Objetivo: verificar a eficácia de um programa de intervenção fonológica em escolares de risco para a dislexia. Métodos: participaram desse estudo 40 escolares do 1º ano do ensino fundamental, de ambos os gêneros, com idade entre 5 anos e 11 meses a 6 anos e 7 meses. Os escolares foram divididos em dois grupos: GI (20 escolares sem risco para dislexias) e GII (20 escolares com risco para dislexia), ambos os grupos foram submetidos ao programa de intervenção fonológica, composto por tarefas de identificação dos sons e das letras do alfabeto em sequência e em ordem aleatória, identificação e produção de rima, produção de rima com frases, identificação e manipulação de palavras, identificação e produção de sílabas, segmentação e análise silábica, identificação e segmentação fonêmica, substituição, síntese, análise e discriminação fonêmica. Em situação de pré e pós-testagem, todos os sujeitos desse estudo foram submetidos à aplicação do Protocolo de Avaliação das Habilidades Cognitivo-Liguísticas - versão coletiva e individual. Resultados: na comparação da pré com a pós-testagem do desempenho dos escolares de GI e GII, houve diferença estatística para os subtestes das habilidades de leitura, escrita, consciência fonológica, processamento auditivo e velocidade de processamento, indicando média de desempenho superior para GII na pós-testagem comparada a pré-testagem. Conclusão: o programa de intervenção fonológica foi eficaz para os escolares de risco para a dislexia, pois, possibilitou o desenvolvimento da consciência fonológica por meio do trabalho interventivo, auxiliando na aquisição das habilidades necessárias para o aprendizado da leitura e da escrita.

Working memory and fine motor skills predict early numeracy performance of children with cerebral palsy

Early numeracy is an important precursor for arithmetic performance, academic proficiency, and work success. Besides their apparent motor difficulties, children with cerebral palsy (CP) often show additional cognitive disturbances. In this study, we examine whether working memory, non-verbal intelligence, linguistic skills, counting and fine motor skills are positively related to the early numeracy performance of 6-year-old children with CP. A total of 56 children (M = 6.0, SD = 0.61, 37 boys) from Dutch special education schools participated in this cross-sectional study. Of the total group, 81% of the children have the spastic type of CP (33% unilateral and 66% bilateral), 9% have been diagnosed as having diskinetic CP, 8% have been diagnosed as having spastic and diskinetic CP and 2% have been diagnosed as having a combination of diskinetic and atactic CP. The children completed standardized tests assessing early numeracy performance, working memory, non-verbal intelligence, sentence understanding and fine motor skills. In addition, an experimental task was administered to examine their basic counting performance. Structural equation modeling showed that working memory and fine motor skills were significantly related to the early numeracy performance of the children (β = .79 and p < .001, β = .41 and p < .001, respectively). Furthermore, counting was a mediating variable between working memory and early numeracy (β = .57, p < .001). Together, these findings highlight the importance of working memory for early numeracy performance in children with CP and they warrant further research into the efficacy of intervention programs aimed at working memory training.