Subitizing and counting impairments in children with developmental coordination disorder.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology

Background:

• Developmental coordination disorder (DCD) significantly impacts academic performance, particularly in mathematics.
• Difficulties in numerical cognition are often observed in children with DCD, affecting their learning.
• Understanding basic numerical processes is crucial for addressing mathematical underachievement.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate numerical cognition in children with DCD, focusing on subitizing and counting abilities.
• To determine if DCD affects fundamental numerical processing skills.
• To explore the link between numerical deficits and mathematical learning difficulties in DCD.

Main Methods:

• A study involving forty children aged 7-10 years, with and without DCD.
• Utilized a subitizing task (250ms dot presentation) and a counting task (unlimited response time).
• Participants verbally reported the number of dots in presented arrays.

Main Results:

• Children with DCD demonstrated significantly lower accuracy in both subitizing and counting tasks.
• DCD group exhibited slower response times in both enumeration tasks.
• Impairments in both rapid (subitizing) and deliberate (counting) numerical processing were evident.

Conclusions:

• Developmental coordination disorder impairs fundamental numerical abilities, including subitizing and counting.
• These numerical deficits in DCD may hinder the development of the Approximate Number System.
• The findings suggest a potential mechanism for mathematical underachievement in children with DCD.