Maths

Question 1

What are the main reasons maths skills are so important?

Answer 1

1. Early maths skills predicts overall success

2. Maths predicts success in other areas

Question 2

How does maths predict overall success?
Duncan et al (2007)
Koponen et al (2013)

Answer 2

Duncan et al (2007) Maths skills at school entry predict achievement throughout school above cognitive ability and social skills.
Kaponen (2013) maths skills predict reading achievement more than lliteracy.

Question 3

maths predicts success in other areas?

Answer 3

Agarwal and Mazumder (2013) maths skills linked to financial security.
Medical - Berkman et al (2011) which limits a persons SES
Early maths predicts college completion and SES at age 42 (Ritchie and Bates, 2013)

Question 4

Childrens maths skills are often…

Answer 4

poor.

64% of 10 year olds dont have proficient maths skills.

Question 5

What did Starkey and COoper find ?

Answer 5

That 4 month olds look longer at quantities different from before.
But only with numbers less than 4. Suggesting early sense of number.

Question 6

What did Feigenson, Carey and Hauser (2002) find?

Answer 6

12 month olds presented with 2 boxes, 1 with 2 crackers and 1 with 3 crackers. Infants crawled to the one with more crackers.

Question 7

What is the early general magnitude system?

Lorenco and Longo (2010)

Answer 7

Infants associate accross dimensions: Bigger = more = lasts longer.

Question 8

How does early maths develop (4 stages)

Answer 8

NNCN

1. Non symbollic quantity understanding
2. Numerical equality
3. counting - counting at age 5 predicts maths achievement at age 8.
4. numerical magnitude

Question 9

What is non symbollic quantity understanding?

Answer 9

Understanding the quantity of something without the need to use numerical names.

Question 10

WHat is subtizing

Answer 10

the ability to know the number of items without counting them

Question 11

What did Libertus, Feigenson & Halberda, 2013 find about non symbollic quantity understanding

Answer 11

That 3 and 4 year olds nsq understanding predicts their maths achievement 6 months later.

Question 12

What is numerical equality ?

Answer 12

That sets of different objects can have the same number

Question 13

When does numerical equality emerge?

Answer 13

Wynn (1995) around 6 months

Question 14

AT what age can most children count to 10 successfully ?

Answer 14

Age 3

Question 15

What are the 5 principles of counting ?

Answer 15

OSCOA

1. One to one correspondence
2. Stable order
3. cardinality - refers to the last number
4. order irrelevance
5. Absreaction - anything can be counted.

Question 16

what is numerical magnitude

Answer 16

understanding that numbers have different amounts (less to more).
Predicts maths achievement.
Le Corre & Carey, 2007 Preschoolers who can count to 10 cant say whether 4 or 8 is bigger.

Question 17

What is Geary (2004) cognitive model of maths

Answer 17

The idea that problems in maths are a result of executive function problems
or the ‘central executive‘ we will call them executive functions

Question 18

what is the central executive?

Answer 18

the central system involved in working memory, directing behavior. The system maintains and controls inhibitory control.

Question 19

how do the language system and visiospatial skills help with maths development?

Answer 19

the modality specific systems support the representation of maths

Question 20

Clements et al (2016)

Answer 20

“There were six birds in a tree. Three birds already flew away. How many birds were there from the start?”

Working memory: Comprehending the word problem and keeping track of the information.

Inhibitory control: Inhibiting the tendency to subtract immediately when you hear the phrase ‘flew away.’ Also ignoring extraneous information e.g., that the birds are in a tree.

Question 21

what is inhibitory control>

Answer 21

it inhibits the initial tendency to think that fractions are bigger cos of bigger numbers.

Question 22

how will poor visiospatial abilities affect maths?

Answer 22

1. Column maths
2. visual attention
3. number magnitude (scales)
4. spatial format

Question 23

how will poor verbal skills affect maths?

Answer 23

1. counting
2. times tables- facts
3. math word problems

Question 24

what is dyscalculia?

Answer 24

Dyscalculia is a specific learning disorder characterised by impairments in learning basic arithmetic facts, processing numerical magnitude and performing accurate and fluent calculation
5-8% of children.

Question 25

what causes dyscalculia?
Deficit in….. N
Koontz & Berch (1996) ?

Answer 25

A core deficit with numerosity:
found that children with dyscalculia appeared to be counting to three rather than subitizing in a dot-matching task, suggesting that difficulties could be tied to the child’s understanding of numerosity.

• this is not something learnt in school therefore some researchers have argued that dyscalculia is caused by a weak intuitive grasp of numbers and difficulties with understanding basic numerical concepts (Butterworth, 2008).

This account may also explain why children with dyscalculia show immature strategies. In extreme cases this can lead to the reverse distance effect where it takes children longer to decide that 9 is larger than 2 than that 9 is larger than 8.

This seems to be due to children with dyscalculia using a counting strategy as it takes longer to count from 2 to 9 than from 8 to 9 (Butterworth, 1999).

Question 26

what causes dyscalculia?
a core deficit in …. CE skills
(Geary, 2004).

Answer 26

Children may use immature strategies like using their fingers to count because they cannot successfully represent this information in working memory.
They also might retrieve the wrong maths strategy or information due to poor inhibitory control.
Memory span in children with dyscalculia is usually lower than controls and is correlated with maths difficulties (Geary, 1993).