Is Finger-counting Necessary for the Development of Arithmetic Abilities?

Is finger-counting necessary for the development of arithmetic abilities

Tactile numerosity is coded in external space

Humans, and several non-human species, possess the ability to make approximate but reliable estimates of the number of objects around them. Alike other perceptual features, numerosity perception is susceptible to adaptation: exposure to a high number of items causes underestimation of the numerosity of a subsequent set of items, and vice versa. Several studies have investigated adaptation in the auditory and visual modality, whereby stimuli are preferentially encoded in an external coordinate system. As tactile stimuli are primarily coded in an internal (body-centered) reference frame, here we ask whether tactile numerosity adaptation operates based on internal or external spatial coordinates as it occurs in vision or audition. Twenty participants performed an adaptation task with their right hand located either in the right (uncrossed) or left (crossed) hemispace. Tactile adaptor and test stimuli were passively delivered either to the same (adapted) or different (non-adapted) hands. Our results show a pattern of over- and under-estimation according to the rate of adaptation (low and high, respectively). In the uncrossed position, we observed stronger adaptation effects when adaptor and test stimuli were delivered to the “adapted” hand. However, when both hands were aligned in the same spatial position (crossed condition), the magnitude of adaptation was similar irrespective of which hand received adaptor and test stimuli. These results demonstrate that numerosity information is automatically coded in external coordinates even in the tactile modality, suggesting that such a spatial reference frame is an intrinsic property of numerosity processing irrespective of the sensory modality

Space and time in the sighted and blind

Across many cultures people conceptualize time as extending along a horizontal Mental Time Line (MTL). This spatial mapping of time has been shown to depend on experience with written text, and may also depend on other graphic conventions such as graphs and calendars. All of this information is typically acquired visually, suggesting that visual experience may play an important role in the development of the MTL. Do blind people develop a MTL? If so, how does it compare with the MTL in sighted? In this study we tested early blind, late blind and sighted participants in a space-time congruity task. Participants had to classify temporal words by pressing a right and a left key, either with crossed or uncrossed hands. We found that the MTL develops in the absence of vision, and that it is based on the same external frame of reference in sighted and blind people. Reading braille may provide the same experiential link between space and time in the manual modality as reading printed text provides in the visual modality. These results showing a similar MTL in sighted and blind participants contrast with previous results showing that the Mental Number Line (MNL) depends on different spatial coordinates in the sighted and the blind, and suggest that spatial representations of time and number may have different experiential bases

Accompagnement des stages dans la formation universitaire en orthophonie : Quelles pratiques favorables au développement professionnel et identitaire des étudiant.e.s

editorial reviewedEn Belgique, la formation en orthophonie de type universitaire (Master) comprend la réalisation de deux stages de minimum 300 heures dans des domaines de prises en charge différents. Des stages d’observation sont organisés dès le Bachelier. L'encadrement de ces stages se fait via une triangulation entre le ou la stagiaire, sa ou son maître de stage (MDS) choisi.e en fonction de son niveau d’expertise clinique et le ou la superviseur.e de la Faculté (assistant.e et/ou académique). Dans les formations universitaires en orthophonie de la région Wallonie Bruxelles, les stages sont proposés dans une perspective d’alternance applicative à visée intégrative. La pratique est prévue pour appliquer les théories apprises en cours de formation et des séminaires sont proposés régulièrement tout au long du stage par l’université pour favoriser l’intégration et le développement des compétences réflexives

Superior numerical abilities following early visual deprivation

In numerical cognition vision has been assumed to play a predominant role in the elaboration of the numerical representations and skills. However, this view has been recently challenged by the discovery that people with early visual deprivation not only have a semantic numerical representation that shares the same spatial properties with that in sighted people, but also have better numerical estimation skills. Here, we show that blind people’s superior numerical abilities can be found in different numerical contexts, whether they are familiar or more general. In particular, we found that blind participants demonstrated better numerical estimation abilities than sighted participants in both an ecologic footstep and an unfamiliar oral verbal production task. Blind participants also tend to show greater working memory skills compared to sighted participants. These findings support the notion that vision is not necessary in the development of numerical cognition and indicate that early visual deprivation may even lead to a general enhancement in numerical estimation abilities. Moreover, they further suggest that blind people’s greater numerical skills might be accounted by enhanced high-level cognitive processes, such as working memory

Explaining the relationship between number line estimation and mathematical achievement: the role of visuomotor integration and visuospatial skills

Performance on number line tasks, typically used as a measure of numerical representations, are reliably related to children’s mathematical achievement. However, recent debate has questioned what precisely performance on the number line estimation task measures. Specifically, there has been a suggestion that this task may measure not only numerical representations but also proportional judgment skills; if this is the case, then individual differences in visuospatial skills, not just the precision of numerical representations, may explain the relationship between number line estimation and mathematical achievement. The current study investigated the relationships among visuospatial skills, visuomotor integration, number line estimation, and mathematical achievement. In total, 77 children were assessed using a number line estimation task, a standardized measure of mathematical achievement, and tests of visuospatial skills and visuomotor integration. The majority of measures were significantly correlated. In addition, the relationship between one metric from the number line estimation task (R2LIN) and mathematical achievement was fully explained by visuomotor integration and visuospatial skill competency. These results have important implications for understanding what the number line task measures as well as the choice of number line metric for research purposes

Fine motor skills predict maths ability better than they predict reading ability in the early primary school years

Fine motor skills have long been recognised as an important foundation for development in other domains. However, more precise insights into the role of fine motor skills, and their relationships to other skills in mediating early educational achievements, are needed to support the development of optimal educational interventions. We explored concurrent relationships between two components of fine motor skills, Fine Motor Precision and Fine Motor Integration, and early reading and maths development in two studies with primary school children of low-to-mid socio-economic status in the U.K. Two key findings were revealed. First, despite being in the first two years of primary school education, significantly better performance was found in reading compared to maths across both studies. This may reflect the protective effects of recent national-level interventions to promote early literacy skills in young children in the U.K. that have not been similarly promoted for maths. Second, fine motor skills were a better predictor of early maths ability than they were of early reading ability. Hierarchical multiple regression revealed that fine motor skills did not significantly predict reading ability when verbal short-term memory was taken into account. In contrast, Fine Motor Integration remained a significant predictor of maths ability, even after the influence of nonverbal IQ had been accounted for. These results suggest that fine motor skills should have a pivotal role in educational interventions designed to support the development of early mathematical skills

Developmental changes in the effect of active left and right head rotation on random number generation

Numbers are thought to be spatially organized along a left-to-right horizontal axis with small/large numbers on its left/right respectively. Behavioral evidence for this mental number line (MNL) comes from studies showing that the reallocation of spatial attention by active left/right head rotation facilitated the generation of small/large numbers respectively. While spatial biases in random number generation (RNG) during active movement are well established in adults, comparable evidence in children is lacking and it remains unclear whether and how children’s access to the MNL is affected by active head rotation. To get a better understanding of the development of embodied number processing, we investigated the effect of active head rotation on the mean of generated numbers as well as the mean difference between each number and its immediately preceding response (the first order difference; FOD) not only in adults (n = 24), but also in 7- to 11-year-old elementary school children (n = 70). Since the sign and absolute value of FODs carry distinct information regarding spatial attention shifts along the MNL, namely their direction (left/right) and size (narrow/wide) respectively, we additionally assessed the influence of rotation on the total of negative and positive FODs regardless of their numerical values as well as on their absolute values. In line with previous studies, adults produced on average smaller numbers and generated smaller mean FODs during left than right rotation. More concretely, they produced more negative/positive FODs during left/right rotation respectively and the size of negative FODs was larger (in terms of absolute value) during left than right rotation. Importantly, as opposed to adults, no significant differences in RNG between left and right head rotations were observed in children. Potential explanations for such age-related changes in the effect of active head rotation on RNG are discussed. Altogether, the present study confirms that numerical processing is spatially grounded in adults and suggests that its embodied aspect undergoes significant developmental changes

Impact of High Mathematics Education on the Number Sense

In adult number processing two mechanisms are commonly used: approximate estimation of quantity and exact calculation. While the former relies on the approximate number sense (ANS) which we share with animals and preverbal infants, the latter has been proposed to rely on an exact number system (ENS) which develops later in life following the acquisition of symbolic number knowledge. The current study investigated the influence of high level math education on the ANS and the ENS. Our results showed that the precision of non-symbolic quantity representation was not significantly altered by high level math education. However, performance in a symbolic number comparison task as well as the ability to map accurately between symbolic and non-symbolic quantities was significantly better the higher mathematics achievement. Our findings suggest that high level math education in adults shows little influence on their ANS, but it seems to be associated with a better anchored ENS and better mapping abilities between ENS and ANS

Peripersonal space representation develops independently from visual experience

Our daily-life actions are typically driven by vision. When acting upon an object, we need to represent its visual features (e.g. shape, orientation, etc.) and to map them into our own peripersonal space. But what happens with people who have never had any visual experience? How can they map object features into their own peripersonal space? Do they do it differently from sighted agents? To tackle these questions, we carried out a series of behavioral experiments in sighted and congenitally blind subjects. We took advantage of a spatial alignment effect paradigm, which typically refers to a decrease of reaction times when subjects perform an action (e.g., a reach-To-grasp pantomime) congruent with that afforded by a presented object. To systematically examine peripersonal space mapping, we presented visual or auditory affording objects both within and outside subjects' reach. The results showed that sighted and congenitally blind subjects did not differ in mapping objects into their own peripersonal space. Strikingly, this mapping occurred also when objects were presented outside subjects' reach, but within the peripersonal space of another agent. This suggests that (the lack of) visual experience does not significantly affect the development of both one's own and others' peripersonal space representation