A componential analysis of an early learning deficit in mathematics.
This study was designed to assess strategy choice and information-processing differences in normal and mathematically disabled first and second grade children. Twenty-three normal and 29 learning disabled (LD) children solved 40 computer-presented simple addition problems. Strategies, and their associated solution times, used in problem solving were recorded on a trial-by-trial basis and each was classified in accordance with the distributions of associations model of strategy choices. Based on performance in a remedial education course, as indexed by achievement test scores, the LD sample was reclassified into a LD-improved group and an LD-no-change group. No substantive differences comparing the normal and LD-improved groups occurred in the distribution of strategy choices, strategy characteristics (e.g., error rates), or rate of information processing. The performance characteristics of the LD-no-change group, as compared to the two remaining groups, included frequent counting and memory retrieval errors, frequent use of an immature computational strategy, poor strategy choices, and a variable rate of information processing. These performance characteristics were discussed in terms of the strategy choice model and in terms of potential long-term memory and working memory capacity deficits. In addition, implications for remedial education in mathematics were discussed.
Geary
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Department of Psychology, University of Missouri, Columbia 65211.
D000124:Achievement; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D003210:Concept Formation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007859:Learning Disabilities / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D008433:Mathematics; D011340:Problem Solving; D011932:Reading; D012073:Remedial Teaching