Tower of London Test Performance in Children With Poor Arithmetic Skills

Abstract

The Tower of London (TOL) has been used to assess executive functions in both children and adults with documented brain dysfunction. Like many other measures of executive function, it has not been widely used in the assessment of learning disabilities in children. However, if performance on the TOL discriminated among groups of children with different academic strengths and weaknesses, then it may be useful in identifying learning disability subtypes. The purpose of this study was to determine whether performance on the TOL would differ among 3 groups of children: those with arithmetic difficulties, those with reading difficulties, and those with no academic difficulties. The group with arithmetic difficulties exhibited significantly greater impairment on the TOL than either the group with reading difficulties or the group with no difficulties. The latter 2 groups performed similarly. The clinical utility of the TOL, as well as the relation between arithmetic deficits and executive functions, are discussed.

Executive functioning in children, and its relations with reasoning, reading, and arithmetic

“…The term executive functioning pertains to a wide variety of conscious, deliberate, meta-cognitive processes, such as planning, organized search, impulse control, goal directed behavior, set maintenance, flexible strategy employment, selective attention, attentional control, initiation of actions, fluidity, selfevaluation, and dual task performance (e.g., Lehto, Juujärvi, Kooistra, & Pulkkinen, 2003;Sikora, Haley, Edwards, & Butler, 2002;Wu, Anderson, & Castiello, 2002). Within this profusion of terms, three EFs are generally acknowledged as important, because they are lower-level (i.e., supposedly implicated in performance on complex executive tasks), and relatively welldefined: shifting, inhibition, and updating (e.g., Baddeley, 1996;Miyake et al, 2000;Rabbitt, 1997).…”

“…For example, in the study by Lehto et al (2003), the latent factor Inhibition was indicated by the Tower of London (TOL) and the Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFFT). In the literature, the TOL is viewed as a measure of planning, monitoring, self-regulation, and problem solving (Klenberg et al, 2001), that also calls on visual perception, attention and working memory (Sikora et al, 2002). The MFFT is viewed as a measure of visual search, hypothesis testing, impulse control, and inhibitory processes (Welsh et al, 1991).…”

Semantic, Executive, and Visuospatial Abilities in Mathematical Reasoning of Referred College Students

“…The choice of measures that represented the EP domain focused on selective attention, sequencing, and processing speed rather than problem solving, cognitive flexibility, or planning skills, and the inclusion of such measures may have resulted in stronger contributions for this domain and more robust and/or consistent results with the prior study . The composition of the current EP domain is a limitation of this study and clearer assessment of working memory (verbal or nonverbal) or problem solving as frequently defined in neuropsychological studies (Bull, Johnston, & Roy, 1999;Bull & Scerif, 2001;Gathercole & Pickering, 2000b;Sikora et al, 2002), or direct assessment of problem-solving strategies and procedural errors in calculation, may be more in line with the Procedural domain as conceptualized by Geary (1993). Thus, the zero-order correlation of math performance to the EP task(s) in the current study was significant for both calculation and applied math reasoning (.31 and .34, respectively), albeit generally lower than correlations between executive skills and math in several of the above studies (range r = .40 to .50).…”

Planning and self-control, but not working memory, directly predict multiplication performance in adults

“…Accordingly, we focused on planning ability as well as WM, because it has been suggested that planning is one of the essential skills for mathematical computations (e.g., Kirby & Ashman, 1984;Sikora, Haley, Edwards, & Butler, 2002). Planning also relies on WM (e.g., Albert & Steinberg, 2011;Goela et al, 2001;Köstering, Stahl, Leonhart, Weiller, & Kaller, 2014;Zelazo, Carter, Reznick, & Frye, 1997) to maintain and revise sequences of plans (Gilhooly, 2005).…”

“…Hence, it has been suggested that planning is crucial for successful mathematical performance and is linked to cognitive strategies used in mathematical computations (Das, Naglieri, & Kirby, 1994). In spite of the important role of planning in arithmetic computations in the few available studies, studies on the relationship between planning skills and arithmetic computations especially in adults are scarce.Solving complex multiplication tasks that requires different sequences of computations and cognitive processes likely involves planning skills, for instance, organizing the best strategies step by step to solve the problem.Accordingly, we focused on planning ability as well as WM, because it has been suggested that planning is one of the essential skills for mathematical computations (e.g., Kirby & Ashman, 1984;Sikora, Haley, Edwards, & Butler, 2002). Planning also relies on WM (e.g., Albert & Steinberg, 2011;Goela et al, 2001;Köstering, Stahl, Leonhart, Weiller, & Kaller, 2014;Zelazo, Carter, Reznick, & Frye, 1997) to maintain and revise sequences of plans (Gilhooly, 2005).…”