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Working memory deficit in children with mathematical difficulties: a general or specific deficit?
1Department of Behavioral Sciences, Linköping University, SE-581 83 Linköping, Sweden. ulfan@ibv.liu.se
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
|November 23, 2006
Summary
Children with mathematical difficulties (MDs) exhibit working memory deficits, particularly in central executive functions. This impacts their ability to process and store numerical and visual information.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Developmental Neuroscience
- Educational Psychology
Background:
- Working memory is crucial for mathematical abilities.
- Deficits in working memory are often associated with learning difficulties.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate working memory deficits in children with mathematical difficulties (MDs).
- To determine if these deficits affect specific components of the working memory system.
- To compare children with MDs and those with comorbid mathematical and reading difficulties.
Main Methods:
- Comparison of 31 children with MDs and 37 with comorbid difficulties against 47 age-matched and 50 younger controls.
- Assessment using various working memory tasks, including visual matrix span, word span, and counting span tasks.
Main Results:
- Both groups with MDs performed worse than age-matched controls on central executive and phonological loop tasks.
- Children with MDs showed deficits in the counting span task compared to younger controls.
- Children with comorbid difficulties exhibited deficits in both counting span and visual matrix span tasks.
Conclusions:
- Findings support the existence of working memory deficits in children with MDs.
- Specific deficits identified in the central executive component, related to processing and storing numerical and visual information.
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