The proposed research will provide a five-year longitudinal study of the development of arithmetic-procedural competencies and number estimation skills in children with a learning disability in mathematics (MD) and normal peers. It is well established that during the solving of simple arithmetic problems MD children 1) rely on developmentally immature strategies, such as finger counting; 2) frequently commit counting errors; 3) use immature counting procedures (e.g., they count both addends rather than stating the cardinal value of one addend and counting-on a number of times equal to the value of the other addend); 4) and, have difficulties retrieving basic facts from long-term memory. The focus of the investigator's currently funded research is to identify the basic cognitive systems, such as working memory, that underlie these arithmetic deficits. He has found, for instance, a strong relation between working memory and MD children's reliance on finger counting and counting errors, and a relation between their use of immature counting procedures and knowledge of counting concepts. In other words, MD children have a lower working memory capacity than their normal peers, and this group difference in working memory explains part of the group differences in use of finger counting and counting errors. Group differences in knowledge of counting principles, in contrast, is unrelated to use of finger counting or counting errors, but explains part of the group difference in the type of procedure used during counting. The proposed research will provide the first longitudinal assessment of these relations among MD children's arithmetic deficits and underlying cognitive systems, and will expand the assessments to include more complex arithmetic problems than have been used in most previous studies. The proposed research will also be the first to assess MD children's ability to use spatial representations (i.e., a mental number line) to make number estimations, and assess how the form of the representation changes with formal schooling. The goals are to document the developmental progression of arithmetic and number estimation competencies in MD children, and to identify - based on the theoretical rationale described in the Background and Significance Section - the cognitive systems (e.g., working memory) that underlie MD children's developmental delays and deficits in these competencies.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) Award (R37)
Project #
5R37HD045914-02
Application #
6804618
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZHD1-MRG-C (31))
Program Officer
Berch, Daniel B
Project Start
2003-09-25
Project End
2008-07-31
Budget Start
2004-08-01
Budget End
2005-07-31
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2004
Total Cost
$359,163
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Missouri-Columbia
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
153890272
City
Columbia
State
MO
Country
United States
Zip Code
65211
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Bailey, Drew H; Siegler, Robert S; Geary, David C (2014) Early predictors of middle school fraction knowledge. Dev Sci 17:775-85
Bailey, Drew H; Watts, Tyler W; Littlefield, Andrew K et al. (2014) State and trait effects on individual differences in children's mathematical development. Psychol Sci 25:2017-26
Geary, David C; Hoard, Mary K; Nugent, Lara et al. (2013) Adolescents' functional numeracy is predicted by their school entry number system knowledge. PLoS One 8:e54651
Li, Yaoran; Geary, David C (2013) Developmental gains in visuospatial memory predict gains in mathematics achievement. PLoS One 8:e70160

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