Symbolic and nonsymbolic number comparison in children with and without dyscalculia.
Developmental dyscalculia (DD) is a pervasive difficulty affecting number processing and arithmetic. It is encountered in around 6% of school-aged children. While previous studies have mainly focused on general cognitive functions, the present paper aims to further investigate the hypothesis of a specific numerical deficit in dyscalculia. The performance of 10- and 11-year-old children with DD characterised by a weakness in arithmetic facts retrieval and age-matched control children was compared on various number comparison tasks. Participants were asked to compare a quantity presented in either a symbolic (Arabic numerals, number words, canonical dots patterns) or a nonsymbolic format (noncanonical dots patterns, and random sticks patterns) to the reference quantity 5. DD children showed a greater numerical distance effect than control children, irrespective of the number format. This favours a deficit in the specialised cognitive system underlying the processing of number magnitude in children with DD. Results are discussed in terms of access and representation deficit hypotheses.
Cognition and Development Department, Louvain School of Psychology, Catholic University of Louvain, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. christophe.mussolin@uclouvain.be
Christophe
C
Mussolin
Sandrine
S
Mejias
Marie-Pascale
MP
Noël
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D002648:Child; D002658:Developmental Disabilities / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D055641:Mathematical Concepts; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011340:Problem Solving / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology