title: Math anxiety and developmental dyscalculia: A study on working memory processes.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Although many children encounter difficulties in arithmetic, the underlying cognitive and emotive factors are still not fully understood. This study examined verbal and visuospatial short-term memory (STM) and working memory (WM) performance in children with developmental dyscalculia (DD) and high mathematics anxiety (MA) compared with typically developing (TD) children.
  
  
  METHODS
  Groups were matched on reading comprehension performance and IQ as well as on general anxiety. We aimed to test whether children with DD and MA were differently impaired in verbal and visuospatial STM and WM. Children were individually tested with four computerized tasks: two STM tasks (forward verbal and visuospatial recall) and two WM tasks (backward verbal and visuospatial recall).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Relative to children with TD, those with DD did not show impairments on the forward or backward verbal tasks, but showed specific impairments in the visuospatial WM task. In contrast, children with MA were particularly impaired in the verbal WM task.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Knowing the underlying cognitive processes that differentiate why children with DD and MA fail in math could have both educational and clinical implications.
authors: a Department of Developmental and Social Psychology , University of Padova , Padova , Italy.
authors: Irene C
authors: IC
authors: Mammarella
authors: Francesca
authors: F
authors: Hill
authors: Amy
authors: A
authors: Devine
authors: Sara
authors: S
authors: Caviola
authors: Dénes
authors: D
authors: Szűcs
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001007:Anxiety / Q000150:complications* / Q000209:etiology*; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D032882:Comprehension; D060705:Dyscalculia / Q000150:complications*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008433:Mathematics; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011932:Reading; D014796:Visual Perception
keywords: Developmental dyscalculia; Mathematics anxiety; Short-term memory; Working memory