Number sense deficits in children with developmental dyscalculia, dyslexia, co-occurring disorder and their typically...

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology

Background:

• Number sense deficits are common in developmental dyscalculia.
• Understanding the specificity of these deficits is crucial for targeted interventions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate number sense deficits in children with developmental dyscalculia.
• To compare these deficits with those in children with dyslexia and co-occurring disorders.
• To examine performance on non-symbolic quantity comparison tasks.

Main Methods:

• A non-symbolic quantity comparison task was administered.
• Participants included children aged 10-11 years from Saudi Arabia.
• Groups comprised children with dyscalculia (n=62), dyslexia (n=60), co-occurring disorder (n=65), and typically developing peers (n=100).

Main Results:

• Significant differences were observed in non-symbolic quantity comparison tasks.
• Children with dyslexia and co-occurring disorders also showed number sense deficits.
• Number sense deficiencies were not specific to the dyscalculia group.

Conclusions:

• Children with developmental dyscalculia do possess number sense deficiencies.
• These number sense deficits are also present in children with dyslexia and co-occurring disorders.
• The findings suggest that number sense deficits are not exclusive to developmental dyscalculia.