Arithmetic Disabilities Research Articles

Neuropsychological differentiation of subnormal arithmetic abilities in children.

For the neuropsychological diagnosis of a Specific disorder of arithmetic skills the standard is defined worldwide by the diagnostic guidelines of the two major classification systems of psychiatric disorders, the ICD- 10 and the DSM-IV, both of which use the discrepancy criterion as the key feature of the diagnosis. It becomes clear that following such guidelines can only mean an extensive diagnostic assessment of patients with subnormal arithmetic abilities, including the social and previous medical history followed by the exclusion of a present disorder or disability, often necessitating laboratory, neuroimaging and neurophysiological tests. In the neuropsychological diagnosis of a Specific disorder of arithmetical skills we found a stepwise approach including previously obtained test results to be most practical and economical. The assessment instruments such as intelligence tests, neuropsychological test batteries, academic achievement tests, specific neuropsychological tests, test batteries for arithmetic abilities or error analysis are discussed. An overview of case studies in the literature is given; however, the overwhelming majority of case reports on patients with arithmetic disabilities are casuistics of adult patients with an acquired loss of arithmetic abilities. The importance of a differentiated neuropsychological diagnosis is demonstrated by four of our own cases: of borderline deficient intelligence, a combined disorder of academic skills, congenital brain dysfunction, and a specific disorder of arithmetic skills. Especially the new quality in assessing arithmetic abilities with the NUCALC battery is demonstrated; diagnostic and therapeutic consequences are discussed.

Persistent arithmetic, reading, or arithmetic and reading disability

The achievement of 1,075 school children was followed to the end of grade 7 or 8. Retrospective details of birth, medical history, and infant adaptive behavior, as well as current information about preschool behavior, were provided by parents before kindergarten entry when their children were ages four to five. At that time, each child was given language, preacademic, and visual-motor tests, and a short-form verbal IQ was obtained. For grades 1 to 8, a mean 6.9 percent qualified as low in arithmetic (including 3.9 percent low only in arithmetic) and 9 percent as low in reading (including 6 percent low only in reading). Groups of children with persistent disability in arithmetic only (2.3 percent), reading only (6.6 percent), and arithmetic plus reading (3.4 percent) were compared on all variables, and gender differences were examined. The specific arithmetic group was superior to the other two groups in preschool verbal IQ and language, and had suffered more birth problems and illness. As found by Rourke and his colleagues (e.g., Rourke and Finlayson 1978) for older children, boys with a specific arithmetic disability showed a preschool profile with high verbal scores and low nonverbal scores. Many gender differences were found for the total sample, but few for the learning disability subgroups.

Is IQ-Achievement Discrepancy Relevant in the Definition of Arithmetic Learning Disabilities?

This study was designed to test whether the criterion based on the IQ-achievement discrepancy is useful in the definition of arithmetic learning disabilities (ALD). A sample of children with ALD, garden-variety (G-V) poor mathematics performance (i.e., the poor arithmetic performance of children of below-average intelligence is believed to be nondiscrepant, or in accordance with their lower cognitive capabilities) and normally achieving children were selected using the standard-score discrepancy method (i.e., the differences between IQ and achievement standard scores). All the groups were compared to determine whether there were differences in solving addition and subtraction word problems and in other cognitive abilities related to mathematics such as working memory. There were no significant differences between children with ALD and children with G-V poor mathematics performance in solving arithmetic word problems or on working memory tasks. The performance of both groups with arithmetic disabilities was significantly below that of normally achieving children. This means that the criterion based on the IQ-achievement discrepancy does not seem to be relevant for differentiating between children with ALD and children with G-V poor mathematics performance.

Social Skills Self-Appraisal of Children With Specific Arithmetic Disabilities

Previous research in subtype analysis identified a group of children with specific arithmetic disabilities (AD) who demonstrated social skills deficits in the context of a particular pattern of neuropsychological strengths and weaknesses. In this study, the social skills of 14 children with AD were measured by parent, teacher, and self-report on the Social Skills Rating System (Gresham & Elliott, 1990) to assess for evidence of social skills deficits and to compare the children's self-appraisals with the adults' ratings. Comparisons with 13 same-age classmates revealed deficits according to parents' and teachers' ratings, but the AD participants failed to report their deficits. Discrepancies in the ratings were positively related to visual-spatial dysfunction but were not related to left-side sensory-perceptual dysfunction. Additional studies are needed to examine the determinants of inaccurate self-appraisal of social skills among children with AD.

Arithmetic Disabilities and ADD Subtypes

This study investigated whether specific academic deficits were associated with attention-deficit disorder (ADD) subtypes. Twenty students (ages 8-12) with attention-deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADD/H) were compared to 20 students with attention-deficit disorder without hyperactivity (ADD/noH). Group differences were compared using a MANCOVA, and paired t tests were used to compare within-group differences. Dependent variables for the within-group differences were four achievement subtest scores from the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery-Revised: Letter-Word Identification, Passage Comprehension, Calculation, and Applied Problems. Consistent with much of the previous research, no significant between-group differences were found on the achievement measures. Significant differences did, however, appear in the six within-group comparisons, all involving lower performance on the Math Calculations subtest. For students with ADD/H, only one comparison (with Math Applied Problems) reached significance. Students with ADD/noH, however, had significantly lower scores on the Calculation subtest compared to all of the other achievement subtests. These results provided additional support for the hypothesis that inattention exerts a specific and deleterious effect on the acquisition of arithmetic computation skills. These findings have important implications for the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD as conceptualized in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994), because they suggest that students with ADHD-Predominantly Inattentive Type may be at increased risk for arithmetic calculation deficits.

Stability of Arithmetic Disability Subtypes

Cross-sectional research has identified subtypes of children with learning disabilities who may have distinctive cognitive ability patterns. This study examined the stability over 19 months of academic subtyping classifications for 80 children ages 9 to 13 representing four subtypes of arithmetic disabilities (AD), using three criteria for learning disability identification. Approximately half of the sample retained AD regardless of identification method. Children with pervasive deficits in arithmetic, reading, and spelling displayed the greatest subtype stability. Only one third of the children with the other subtypes, including those with isolated arithmetic deficits, retained their original subtypes. Thus, drawing conclusions and making recommendations based on academic subtyping at a single point in time may be unwise.

算数障害の概念 : 法的定義,学習障害研究,医学的診断基準の視点から

本研究では、算数障害という用語の内容や範囲について明らかにするために、主として米国における学習障害の法制度上の位置づけと教育的アプローチにおける算数障害のとらえ方、内外の学習障害研究の枠組みの中で論じられる算数障害のとらえ方、日本で実質上学習障害の診断に重要な国際的な医学的診断基準における算数障害のとらえ方について概観した。その結果、それぞれの視点によってこの用語が指し示す内容や範囲が不明確で多義的であることが明らかとなった。わが国においても、学習障害に関する制度上の位置づけが検討されているが、改めて算数障害という用語を明確に規定する必要があると考える。算数障害という用語の定義は、発達的視点を導入すること、計算障害のみではなくより広い概念としてとらえること、下位分類においては、認知障害の特徴に対応した指導へつながるような情報処理的観点を含めることという3点が重要であることが指摘された。

Attentional Function in Children with Arithmetic Disability

s: Abstracts of Papers Presented at the Sixteenth Annual Meeting of the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics: September 27-28, 1998 Cleveland, Ohio: Presented Sunday, September 27, 1998: Language Disability, Learning Disability, and ADHD: PDF Only

Cognitive Profiles of Reading-Disabled Children: Comparison of Language Skills in Phonology, Morphology, and Syntax

A comprehensive cognitive appraisal of elementary school children with learning disabilities showed that within the language sphere, deficits associated with reading disability are selective Phonological deficits consistently accompany reading problems whether they occur in relatively pure form or in the presence of coexisting attention deficit or arithmetic disability Although reading-disabled children were also deficient in production of morphologically related forms, this difficulty stemmed in large part from the same weakness in the phonological component that underlies reading disability In contrast, tests of syntactic knowledge did not distinguish reading-disabled children from those with other cognitive disabilities, nor from normal children after covarying for intelligence

Arithmetic disabilities with and without reading difficulties: A comparison of arithmetic errors

Arithmetic errors of 80 children with arithmetic disabilities, representing 3% of a population‐based sample, and of 80 sex‐ and age‐matched control children were systematically analyzed. In Analysis 1, covariance structure modeling (LISREL) was applied to analyze relations between reading, as measured by text reading accuracy and speed, and arithmetic error types. The results demonstrated that reading accuracy and speed were connected to errors in multiplication fact retrieval. In Analysis 2, a classification of children with arithmetic disabilities into subgroups by reading accuracy and speed difficulties revealed that children with dysfluent reading made more fact‐retrieval errors than did children in the control group or the children with arithmetic disabilities and normal reading speed. Results indicate that difficulties in arithmetic fact retrieval and difficulties in reading speed may share a common underlying factor.

Reading‐disabled students with and without comorbid arithmetic, disability

Two subgroups of learning disabled students, reading disabled only (RD) and reading/arithmetic disabled (RAD), were contrasted at two age levels, 8 to 12 years old and 12 to 17 years old. At both age levels, RAD students were significantly poorer spellers and weaker on the Arithmetic and Coding subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) than RD‐only students. The younger subgroups were also differentiated by four other WISC‐R sub‐tests: Information, Similarities, Comprehension, and Block Design. The adolescent subgroups differed on the new Symbol Search subtest of the WISC‐III. The subgroups did not differ at either age level on phonological skills, memory tasks, naming speed, and picture vocabulary. Nor did they differ on parent ratings of externalizing and internalizing behavior problems. Evidence is presented that arithmetic disabled children fall relatively further behind with increasing age. A core weakness in reading and arithmetic disability is processing speed, and students wi...

A Test of the Immunoreactive Theory for the Origin of Neurodevelopmental Disorders in the Offspring of Women with Immune Disorder

Gualtieri and Hicks (1985) proposed that male vulnerability for neurodevelopmental disorders (NDs) was partially due to intrauterine immune attack of the fetus. One group of mothers with heightened immunoreactivity might be women with immune disorder. This was tested within an epidemiological sample of 17,283 mother/child pairs. Maternal immune disorders considered were ulcerative colitis or asthma. NDs in the child included: cerebral palsy, mental retardation, seizures, articulation disorder, reading, or arithmetic disability, verbal or performance aptitude deficits, attention deficit disorder. Unlike prior studies, we controlled for demographic perinatal variables that might confound interpretation of the data. Results indicated that immune dysfunction in the mother, be it autoimmune (ulcerative colitis) or defensive (asthma) was not associated with an increased incidence of any NDs in the offspring, but mothers with ulcerative colitis did have a disproportionate number of offspring who were non-right handed. Few variables discriminated between the children of ulcerative colitis mothers who became right handed when compared to those who did not. We suggest that a) only certain maternal autoimmune disorders such as systemic lupus erythematosus (but not ulcerative colitis or asthma) elevate the risk of intrauterine immune attack and b) the elevated rate of non-right handed offspring among ulcerative colitis mothers was not an instance of immune attack but instead represents some kind of genetic association.

Fall conception increases the risk of neurodevelopmental disorder in offspring.

Hormonal imbalances in utero may render males more vulnerable to neurodevelopmental disorder (ND) than females. Since hormonal activity can be influenced by photoperiod, the relationship between season of conception and incidence of ND in offspring was examined within 11,578 mother/child pairs. Fall conception significantly elevated the odds for mental retardation, reading, arithmetic disability, or performance aptitude deficits (but not seizures, articulation disorder, cerebral palsy, or verbal aptitude deficits), and decreased the odds for reading talent (even when socioeconomic class, prenatal visits, infections, fever, vomiting, edema, anemia, and weight loss were covaried). Since the seasonality effect was not stronger in males, and was not specific to those NDs caused by left hemisphere dysfunction, the predictions of Geschwind and Galaburda (1985a, 1985b, 1985c) were not confirmed.

Neuropsychological characteristics of children with tourette syndrome: Evidence for a nonverbal learning disability

In this study the neuropsychological characteristics of thirty-one 6 to 16-year-old children with Tourette Syndrome (TS) were compared to 20 normal siblings and 10 children with arithmetic disabilities (AD) who were comparable in age and socioeconomic status. Unlike the sibling group, neuropsychological profiles of the TS and AD groups were expected to reflect nonverbal learning disabilities (NLD). The three groups performed generally within the average range on academic and cognitive measures. Like the AD children, the TS group demonstrated poorer performance on written arithmetic tasks with comparatively better word reading and written word spelling. Unlike the AD group, who demonstrated generalized nonverbal deficiencies, children with TS demonstrated reduced performance on visual-motor and expressive language measures as well as measures of complex cognition. These results are suggestive of an "output" subtype of learning disability and support theories that implicate the mesocortical dopaminergic system in the pathophysiology of TS.

Subtypes of learning disabilities in adolescents and adults.

This study tested the hypothesis that a classification scheme developed for the subtyping of learning disabilities in children, when applied to a population of adolescents and adults, would result in subtyping into discrete and relatively homogeneous groups in terms of cognitive functioning and achievement. We compared three groups, arithmetic disability (AD), reading disability (RD), and reading and arithmetic disabilities (RAD), among themselves and with a comparison group with normal achievement (NA) on a variety of cognitive and achievement measures. The main findings were as follows: (a) Each of the groups differed significantly from the others on tests of reading, spelling, memory, and other cognitive measures; (b) both the RD and RAD groups showed a deficit in phonological processing, vocabulary, spelling, and STM; (c) the AD group performed similarly to the NA group on pseudoword reading and phonological processing, but did more poorly than the NA group on word reading and vocabulary; (d) on many tasks the RAD group performed more poorly than the other groups; and (e) the AD and RAD groups performed more poorly than the NA and RD groups on a visual-spatial task. This study demonstrated the validity of this classification scheme for the subtyping of learning disabilities in adolescents and adults.

Visual and phonological spelling errors in subtypes of children with learning disabilities

ABSTRACTThis study investigated the hypothesis that children with a reading disability understand and use sound-spelling correspondence rules less frequently in spelling than children with other learning disabilities and normally achieving children. To test this hypothesis, spelling errors of children between the ages of 6 and 16 with a reading disability (RD), an arithmetic disability (AD), and normally achieving children (NA) were examined. Two groups of children with an arithmetic disability were included: those with good spelling skills (AD-good), and those with poor spelling skills (AD-poor). The accuracy of the spelling errors according to sound-spelling correspondence rules (phonological accuracy) of the children was determined using both a constrained system (inclusion of position cues) and an unconstrained system (in which positional cues were irrelevant). The visual similarity of the error to the target word was also determined. The RD group at all ages produced significantly fewer phonologically accurate misspellings than the children with normal achievement scores, whether the constrained or the unconstrained scoring system was used. The AD-poor spellers and the RD group produced significantly fewer phonologically constrained, accurate misspellings than the NA group. Using the unconstrained measure, the AD-poor spellers at the youngest age level displayed as much difficulty using rudimentary sound-symbol conversion rules as the RD group, while at the older age levels, they did as well as the NA group. AD-good spellers performed as well as the NA group on both measures at all age levels. Children who were good readers and spellers (Good RS) were compared with children who were poor readers and spellers (Poor RS) and with children who were good readers and poor spellers (Mixed RS). Mixed RS produced significantly more phonologically and visually accurate misspellings than Poor RS. In summary, subtypes of learning-disabled children use spelling strategies that are significantly different from each other. RD children have the most difficulty acquiring the knowledge of soundspelling correspondence rules that are necessary for English spelling skills. The performance of AD children depends on the complexity of the scoring system, age, and spelling ability. Those students whose knowledge of sound-spelling correspondence rules is sufficiently well developed for reading but not for spelling (good readers/poor spellers) develop their phonetic skills more slowly than the good readers/good spellers. The understanding and use of phonological rules varies according to the subtype of learning disability, with children with a reading disability performing the most poorly at all age levels.

Arithmetic disabilities, specific and otherwise: a neuropsychological perspective.

From a neuropsychological perspective, this article summarizes research that addresses some of the developmental interactions of disabilities in reading, spelling, and mechanical arithmetic. The focus is on two subtypes of children with learning disabilities who exhibit equally impaired levels of arithmetic achievement, but with vastly different patterns of neuropsychological assets and deficits. Qualitative as well as quantitative analyses lead to the conclusion that one of these patterns of neuropsychological assets and deficits (i.e., the nonverbal learning disabilities syndrome; NLD) leads--at the same time and in much the same manner--to specific patterns of impairment in mechanical arithmetic and in psychosocial functioning. The other pattern (Group R-S) is found to lead to particular patterns of academic deficits (including arithmetic), but not to any particular level or type of psychosocial dysfunction. The manifestations of the NLD profile in various types of neurological disease, disorder, and dysfunction are also explored.

Ability profiles of developmental language disordered and learning disabled children: A comparative analysis

Developmental language disorder (DLD) children and learning‐disabled (LD) children were classified into subtypes. These subtype classifications were based on the child's Wide Range Achievement Test‐Revised (WRAT‐R) profile of Reading, Spelling, and Arithmetic standard scores. Such subtyping resulted in both groups of chil‐ • dren being predominantly classified with globally impaired reading, spelling, and arithmetic disabilities. Although both groups of these globally impaired children demonstrated similar degrees of reading, spelling, and arithmetic disability ^ they differed markedly from each other on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children‐Revised (WISC‐R) verbal subtests. The DLD children were significantly more impaired than the LD children on WISC‐R Verbal subtests. Additionally, there was an atypical pattern of correlation between WISC‐R Verbal subtests for the DLD children. These findings suggest that DLD and LD children with globally impaired reading, spelling, and arithmetic skill differ m...

Learning Disability, Inferential Skills, and Postfailure Reflectivity

Children with learning disabilities (LD) were compared with normally achieving children (NA) on two aspects of problem solving: inferential skills and response to errors in an academic content-free task. We tested 33 normally achieving children and 69 children with LD, aged 7 years 10 months to 16 years 4 months, on the PAR (PAttern Recognition) task, a computer-based, self-paced learning sequence. The children with LD were subtyped in two different ways: first, as children with only an arithmetic disability (AD), or with both arithmetic and word-recognition disabilities (AD/WRD); and second, as children with LD and attention deficit disorder (ADD), or LD without ADD. Results showed that on inferential skills, children with LD (without subtyping), children with AD/WRD, and children with LD with and without ADD scored significantly lower on the PAR task than children in the NA group. Also, an interaction was found between the NA and LD (without subtyping) groups and age, whereby children with LD improved their scores on PAR with age significantly more than normally achieving children. On attention to errors, children with both arithmetic and word-recognition disabilities scored significantly lower than children with only arithmetic disability or NA. It appears that the meta-cognitive skill of monitoring errors may be a major source of difficulty in problem solving for children with both arithmetic and word-recognition disabilities.

Nature and prevalence of learning disabilities in a child psychiatric population

The protocols of over 500 children from a psychiatric hospital were evaluated to determine the nature and prevalence of learning disabilities in this population. The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children‐Revised (WISC‐R), the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT), and the revised form (WRAT‐R) were used in our analysis. The distribution of IQ and achievement scores in this population, unlike other studies of psychiatric patients, was within normal limits, and therefore, comparable to a nonpsychiatric school age population. The prevalence of learning disabilities in this group, however, is relatively high as compared to a nonpsychiatric population. The proportion of reading achievement disabilities was significantly lower than the proportion of children with arithmetic achievement disabilities. In fact, the modal achievement profile in this child psychiatric setting was reading achievement greater than arithmetic. Neither IQ nor academic achievement nor the discrepancy between the two varied as a function ...