Do Chinese Children With Math Difficulties Have a Deficit in Executive Functioning?

Abstract

Several studies have shown that Executive Functioning (EF) is a unique predictor of mathematics performance. However, whether or not children with mathematics difficulties (MD) experience deficits in EF remains unclear. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine if Chinese children with MD experience deficits in EF. We assessed 23 children with MD (9 girls, mean age = 10.40 years), 30 children with reading difficulties and MD (RDMD; 12 girls, mean age = 10.82 years), and 31 typically-developing (TD) peers (16 girls, mean age = 10.41 years) on measures of inhibition (Color-Word Stroop, Inhibition), shifting of attention (Planned Connections, Rapid Alternating Stimuli), working memory (Digit Span Backwards, Listening Span), processing speed (Visual Matching, Planned Search), reading (Character Recognition, Sentence Verification), and mathematics (Addition and Subtraction Fluency, Math Standard Achievement Test). The results of MANOVA analyses showed first that the performance of the MD children in all EF tasks was worse than their TD peers. Second, with the exception of the shifting tasks in which the MD children performed better than the RDMD children, the performance of the two groups was similar in all measures of working memory and inhibition. Finally, covarying for the effects of processing speed eliminated almost all differences between the TD and MD groups (the only exception was Listening Span) as well as the differences between the MD and RDMD groups in shifting of attention. Taken together, our findings suggest that although Chinese children with MD (with or without comorbid reading difficulties) experience significant deficits in all EF skills, most of their deficits can be accounted by lower-level deficits in processing speed.

Arabic digit processing in adults with mathematical learning disability

“…Finally, our results converge with a number of studies showing that participants with MLD suffer from a recurrent slowdown in cognitive tasks, adding up to their difficulties with symbolic number processing, as evidenced here by the higher RTs observed in the control choice reaction time tasks (see also Censabella & Noël, 2005;Lafay et al, 2018;Rousselle & Noël, 2007;Wang et al, 2018). Domaingeneral deficits of cognitive control, attention, working memory or processing speed have been reported…”

“…in MLD (Fias et al, 2013;Rubinsten & Henik, 2009;Wang et al, 2018). In our and other studies in individuals with MLD (Cheng et al, 2018), the slowdown observed in non-numerical tasks that simply require matching low-level perceptual attributes with binary motor responses is indeed compatible with domain-general deficits affecting background cognitive processing.…”

Executive Function and Planning Features of Students With Different Types of Learning Difficulties in Chinese Junior Middle School

“…However, when the learning difficulties were classified by type, different conclusions were drawn about working memory and inhibition deficits in different research. Some studies have found students with MD (e.g., Paul et al, 2019;Toll et al, 2011) and RD (Reiter et al, 2005) showed deficits in working memory, while others did not find a predictive relationship between working memory deficits and MD (e.g., Van der Sluis et al, 2005;Wang et al, 2018) or RD (Gathercole et al, 2004). In terms of inhibition deficits, some studies have found students with MD (Censabella & Noël, 2007) and RD (Reiter et al, 2005;Willcutt et al, 2005) showed deficits in inhibition, while others found no connection between inhibition deficits and MD (Peng et al, 2012) or RD (Gathercole et al, 2004).…”

The Cognitive Ability of Chinese Students with Dyslexia and Mathematical Learning Disabilities

“…In this study, executive function is significantly related to Chinese students’ mathematical achievement, and has a high predictive effect on Chinese students’ mathematical achievement, which can explain 22% of the variance of mathematical achievement. The inhibition of irrelevant information is the key to improving working memory efficiency [ 58 ]. Subsequent research on the problem solving ability of students with mathematics learning disabilities has proved this [ 97 ].…”

“…Students with MD in Chinese environment also have the characteristics of slow processing speed [ 58 ]. A study [ 59 ] found that processing speed is related to students’ ability to calculate and solve problems.…”