The NIH website today features a fascinating article about a study that explored the early understanding that students develop about number systems, symbols, and quantities and how difficulties with these very early associations are correlated with students' later diagnoses with math learning disabilities.

"The children in the study who appeared to have difficulty grasping the fundamental concept of exact numerical quantities — that the printed numeral 3, for example, represents three dots on a page — went on to be diagnosed with math learning disability by fifth grade.

Other early factors correlated with a math learning disability were difficulty recalling answers to single-digit addition problems, distractibility in class, and difficulty understanding that more complex math problems can be broken down into smaller problems that can be solved individually."

The test that seemed to have the strongest correlation was one that used combinations of numerals and other symbolic representations. Students who struggled with this type of question--where different representations are combined in the same question--were most likely to later fall under the math learning disability diagnosis later in their elementary years.

It's a short article, an easy read! Find it at

www.nih.gov/news/health/oct2011/nichd-24.htm

Melissa