Abstract
Individuals with Down syndrome (DS) present reduced basic numerical skills, which have a negative impact on everyday numeracy and mathematical learning. Here, we evaluated the efficacy of the adaptive (non-commercial) computerized game “The Number Race” in improving basic numerical skills in children with DS. The experimental group (EG; N = 30, Mage-in-months 118, range 70–149) completed a training playing with “The Number Race”, whereas children in the control group (CG; N = 31, Mage-in-months 138, range 76–207) worked with software aiming at improving their reading skills. The training lasted 10 weeks with two weekly sessions of 20–30 min each. We assessed both groups’ numerical and reading skills before and immediately after the end of the training, as well as at a 3-months follow-up. We found weak evidence for post-training groups differences in terms of overall numeracy score. However, the EG displayed substantial improvements in specific numerical skills and in mental calculation, which were maintained over time, and no improvement in reading. Conversely, the CG showed improvements in their reading skills as well as in number skills but to a lesser extent compared to the EG. Overall, “The Number Race” appears as a suitable tool to improve some aspects of numeracy in DS.
Highlights
Numeracy constitutes an essential skill as it has been related to overall academic achievement, financial security, and well-being[1,2,3,4,5,6]
We allocated participants (12 boys, age range in months = 70–149) to the Experimental Group (EG), that played with the Italian version of “The Number Race”[72,74], and participants (14 boys, age range in months = 76–207) to the active Control Group (CG), that practised with the software “Fondiamoleletterine”[73] or “Lettura di base 3”83, which aim to improve reading skills
We assigned participants to an experimental group (EG) who played with “The Number Race” and a control group (CG) who worked on reading skills using two different software
Summary
Numeracy constitutes an essential skill as it has been related to overall academic achievement, financial security, and well-being[1,2,3,4,5,6]. Children with DS displayed a performance that decreased as a function of the numerical ratio and was higher for large compared to small numerical q uantities[23] In line with this evidence, two eye-tracking studies showed that children with DS demonstrate looking patterns, when performing a numerosity comparison task, similar to typically developing individuals matched for mental a ge[24,25]. The performance in comparing large numerical quantities, instead, was lower only compared to that of chronologically matched individuals but similar to that of mental age controls. Overall, it emerges that individuals with DS display a specific numerical deficit concerning the processing of small numerical quantities. Children with DS show a tracking system whose capacity is limited to one element[28] and a specific deficit in processing more than one item at a time[29]
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