Mental Math and Dyscalculia in the Brain

From the Ansari lab, more data about how the brain does or does not do math. Having a spatial sense of number quantity is something that takes time to develop. Young children memorize number meanings (prefrontal), but having a sense of number quantity and inter-relatedness only develops as the parietal cortex matures.

fMRIs of children with developmental dyscalculia (often seen with dyslexia)confirm the absence of a distance effect (the farther apart numbers, the quicker the ability to judge that one number is larger) compared to typically-developing children. So a critical feature of developmental dyscalculia is a failure to have a spatial or distance sense of numbers. Having this 'feel' for numbers helps one perform mental math quickly; if lacking, calculations must be performed in a more ponderous fashion using much more working memory in the process.

Interesting to see that math achievement had a fairly direct relationship with the extent of white matter in the left corona radiata. No wonder that kids with various white matter / connectivity challenges (premature birth, birth stress, dyslexia, etc.) struggle with math achievement.



Ansari: Math, Development, and fMRI pdf
Unraveling Math Dyslexia

Changing Needs of Gifted Education

In anticipation of a new book from the American Psychological Association (The Development of Giftedness and Talent Across the Life Span) comes this Education Week article:

Excerpt: "If schools were to view giftedness as more of a developmental process than an immutable attribute, they would likely need to test children more often. And children might move in and out of “gifted” programs more frequently, based on their individual needs."

The points made include concepts such as "...Academic talents can wax and wane...(so that) a child who clearly outpaces his or her peers academically at age 8 can end up solidly in the middle of the pack by the end of high school. Instead of being innate and immutable, giftedness can be nurtured and even taught—and if ignored, it can also be lost."

In most gifted programs, preschool testing may be the make-it or break-it determinant of whether a child is in or out of a gifted program. This does lead to under-recognition of children (late bloomers, late talkers, slow performers, non-privileged children) as well as over-estimation of others (early bloomers, early talkers, quick performers, privileged children). Programs would benefit by allowing children to test into gifted programs at different ages, but care should also be taken before exiting a child from a gifted program - unrecognized learning disabilities are common reasons that young gifted children don't look gifted when they get older - and twice-exceptional or 2e children may be inappropriately placed in regular classrooms. For many 2e kids, their most appropriate placement is in a gifted classroom with necessary accommodations.

Gifted dyslexic students may frequently find themselves in the "poor fit" category. Their advanced conceptual, analytical, and oral verbal ability may easily land them into a gifted classroom as kindergarteners, but as they progress through school, they may fall increasingly as writing expectations increase.

Another controversial point raised by developmental psychologist Daniel Keating:

Excerpt: "...pullout-style “enrichment” programs don’t really meet the needs of students who are working far above their grade levels, he said. In fact, Mr. Keating argued, such enrichment is probably better aimed at struggling students.

“Why don’t you take the least-engaged kids and get them to like school more?” he said. “It’s being aimed at the wrong kids.”

Precocious students should be allowed to take academic courses at a higher level, Mr. Keating said."

It's possible that Keating's comments are being taken out of context, but enrichment is appropriate for many gifted students - while acceleration is not - many gifted children can manage more complex and detailed lesson plans, yet not have the motor, expressive output, or other physical development to keep up with grade acceleration.

Interesting issues raised by this new book on gifted education by the APA. We look forward to reading the full book when it's out.

Feeling Too Vividly

When test subjects watched a pair of virtual arms being injured, their galvanic skin responses increased (sympathetic activation, emotional arousal). When the subjects were imagining the arms they saw were theirs, then even stronger responses were seen.

fMRI studies in children show that when a child sees another person experiencing pain, their fMRI responses looks as if they were experiencing the pain themselves.

Not surprisingly, children with vivid imaginations and imagery struggle knowing what actually happened to them vs. other children - it's because their minds physically feel pain when they see another child getting hurt. Seemingly minor slights, injuries, and injustices experienced over a routine school day can weigh down these children emotionally and physically, so that they become exhausted and their parents don't understand why.

It doesn't help that emotions and the fight or flight reactions in children are often under good cognitive control at this stage of development, but that's why strong preventative strategies (avoiding conflict, reducing class sizes, choosing orderly classrooms) are so important especially before children have matured. For many children, too, oversensitivities can be helped by cognitive behavioral training approaches that encourage children to become more analysts of what they observe rather than first person experiencers of the suffering or conflicts of others.

Strong Responses with Imagining pdf
Empathy in children
Eide Neurolearning Blog: Emotional Hijack

Children Learn from Praise, Adults Learn from Mistakes

Researchers from the Netherlands found that children younger than the age of 12 haven't developed brain pathways that would help them to learn well from mistakes.

Excerpt from the Science Daily article:

"In children of eight and nine, these areas of the brain react strongly to positive feedback and scarcely respond at all to negative feedback. But in children of 12 and 13, and also in adults, the opposite is the case. Their 'control centres' in the brain are more strongly activated by negative feedback and much less by positive feedback."

Exceptions certainly abound, as we assess many young children who are able to learn efficiently from their mistakes - but they are not the majority. The observations of this study are interesting, and could have significant implications for parents and teachers alike. Young children who transgress rules or struggle in school subjects are commonly scolded for a failure to learn from mistakes - but perhaps the problem may be in our developmentally-inappropriate expectations?

Science Daily: Children don't learn from mistakes until after 12
Learning from Positive and Negative Feedback fMRI pdf