ERIC Number: EJ1076830
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2015-Nov
Pages: 11
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0022-2194
EISSN: N/A
Magnitude Representation and Working Memory Updating in Children with Arithmetic and Reading Comprehension Disabilities
Pelegrina, Santiago; Capodieci, Agnese; Carretti, Barbara; Cornoldi, Cesare
Journal of Learning Disabilities, v48 n6 p658-668 Nov 2015
It has been argued that children with learning disabilities (LD) encounter severe problems in working memory (WM) tasks, especially when they need to update information stored in their WM. It is not clear, however, to what extent this is due to a generally poor updating ability or to a difficulty specific to the domain to be processed. To examine this issue, two groups of children with arithmetic or reading comprehension LD and a group of typically developing children (9 to 10 years old) were assessed using two updating tasks requiring to select the smallest numbers or objects presented. The results showed that children with an arithmetic disability failed in a number updating task, but not in the object updating task. The opposite was true for the group with poor reading comprehension, whose performance was worse in the object than in the number updating task. It may be concluded that the problem of WM updating in children with LD is also due to a poor representation of the material to be updated. In addition, our findings suggest that the mental representation of the size of objects relates to the semantic representation of the objects' properties and differs from the quantitative representation of numbers.
Descriptors: Learning Disabilities, Short Term Memory, Children, Arithmetic, Reading Comprehension, Reading Difficulties, Comparative Analysis, Mathematics Skills, Grade 4, Elementary School Students, Foreign Countries, Tests, Interviews, Statistical Analysis, Cognitive Processes
SAGE Publications and Hammill Institute on Disabilities. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Grade 4; Intermediate Grades; Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Spain (Andalusia)
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Woodcock Johnson Tests of Achievement
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A