Poster #41 - The Contributions of Executive Functions to Mathematical Learning Difficulties and Mathematical Talent During Adolescence

• In Event: 1-169 - Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Section - Cognitive Processes

Integrative Statement

Are mathematical learning difficulties and mathematical talent related to the same underlying abilities? That is, are these two categories the lower and upper ends of the normal distribution of mathematical aptitude? Or are they discontinuous, qualitatively different cases? To study mathematical learning difficulties, researchers have traditionally taken the disability/ability approach, where difficulty is understood as the result of an impaired cognitive ability (e.g., number sense, working memory) or the malfunction of a specific brain region or regions (Mazzocco, Feigenson, & Halberda, 2011; Murphy, Mazzocco, Hanich, & Early, 2007; Price, Holloway, Räsänen, Vesterinen, & Ansari, 2007). Recent approaches have suggested that different levels of the same abilities whose deficits are responsible for learning disabilities (e.g., executive functions) may also explain the normal variation (Cirino, Tolar, Fuchs, & Huston-Warren, 2016; Mammarella et al., 2017). Here, we take a step further and suggest that a heightened degree of these same abilities could also be responsible for exceptional mathematical aptitude. Therefore, the main goal of this study was to determine whether mathematical learning difficulties are explained by the same executive functions as mathematical talent. To achieve our goal, we screened a pool of 2,682 first-year high school students and, based on their scores in a group- and in an individually-administered math subtests, we selected 48 for evaluation, dividing them into three groups: those with mathematical learning difficulties (MLD, n = 16), those with typical performance (n = 16), and those with mathematical talent (MT, n = 16). Adolescents from the learning difficulties and talented groups had age, reading skills, and verbal and non-verbal intelligence that were similar to those of the typical performance group (all Hedges' g ≤ 0.71). To further describe the mathematical skills of the three groups, we also calculated the mean proportion of correct responses of each of the three factors of the Math Computation subtest reported by Abreu-Mendoza, Chamorro, and Matute (2018). The largest difference between the MLD and the Typical Performance groups was in the Arithmetic factor, that involve solving multidigit arithmetical problems, while the largest difference between the Typical performance and MT groups was in the Rational numbers factor that mostly involves solving arithmetical problems with fractions with different denominators.
Participants were administered a suite of tasks to evaluate verbal and visual short-term memory and executive functions of inhibition (go/no go task), shifting (local global task), and updating (letter and visuospatial n-back tasks). Our results showed that adolescents at both ends of the continuum had specific executive function profiles: those with learning difficulties were characterized by having lesser visuospatial updating abilities than adolescents with typical performance, while those with mathematical talent were distinguished by their greater ability to shift between instructions. Effect sizes for the differences in performance between groups were large (Hedges' g > 0.8). Our results also suggest that there is an interplay between these ability levels, shown in the different components of executive function and specific types of mathematical problems.

Authors

• Roberto A Abreu-Mendoza, Universidad de Guadalajara
  Presenting Author

• Yaira Chamorro, Universidad de Guadalajara
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mauricio Garcia-Barrera, University of Victoria
  Non-Presenting Author

• Esmeralda Matute, Universidad de Guadalajara
  Non-Presenting Author