Elsevier

Cognition

Volume 68, Issue 2, August 1998, Pages B63-B70
Cognition

Brief article
Predicting arithmetical achievement from neuro-psychological performance: a longitudinal study

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-0277(98)00046-8Get rights and content

Abstract

In this article, we show that the performances of 5- to 6-year-old children in arithmetic tests can be predicted from their performances in neuro-psychological tests administered a number of months in advance, independently of their level of development.

Introduction

A number of researchers have established a relationship between performances in reading, writing and arithmetic, on the one hand, and performances in neuro-psychological tests on the other. Rourke and colleagues (Rourke and Finlayson, 1978; Rourke and Strang, 1978) defined three learning-disabled groups (LD) in a population of children aged 9 to 14 years. The subjects in the first group (G1) exhibited the same degree of deficiency in reading, writing and arithmetic. The children in the second group (G2) had performances lower than normal in these three fields, but their arithmetic scores were higher than their reading and writing scores. The subjects of the third group (G3) achieved arithmetic performances which were lower than their reading and writing performances.

These three groups were subjected to neuro-psychological tests (motor skills, psychomotor skills, perceptuo-tactile skills) and the scores achieved were compared with their academic performances. There was a significant correlation only between the poor arithmetic performances of G3 and their lower than normal performances in certain tests of psychomotor and perceptuo-tactile skills. This configuration of results is reminiscent of Gerstmann's syndrome. This syndrome is characterized by four symptoms: (a) a digital agnosia, subjects being unable to identify and select fingers on their own hands or on somebody else's hands; (b) agraphia without alexia; (c) acalculia; and (d) visuo-spatial orientation problems, subjects being unable to identify left and right on their own body or on somebody else's body (Gerstmann, 1940; Grigsby et al., 1987; Mazzoni et al., 1990; nevertheless see the criticisms raised by Benson and Geshwind, 1970; Benson and Weir, 1972; Benton, 1987).

According to Gerstmann (1940), the different symptoms co-occur since they all reveal a deficiency of body image which most particularly affects the hands. Seen from this point of view, the basic symptom would be digital agnosia which would be the origin of the other manifestations of the syndrome. Gerstmann's proposal that links the syndrome to body image problems has been challenged. The association of the four symptoms can be more simply explained in terms of cerebral locus (Benton, 1987): the different cortical centres involved in such performances occupy neighbouring sites in the occipito-parietal area of the language-dominant hemisphere and, more precisely, in the left angular gyrus. The existence of this association justifies the integration of tests of tactile perception and the somato-sensory integrity of the sensory cortex (i.e. the simultagnosia test and graphisthesia test) in the current study.

According to Rourke (1993)and Rourke and Conway (1997), arithmetical deficiencies may be due to a developmental disturbance of cognitive operations during the sensori-motor period as a result of neuro-psychological problems. However, the study of the same associations of patterns of arithmetic performance and neuro-psychological performance in younger children (7 to 8 years) has not resulted in such clear results as for older subjects (9 to 14 years), (Ozols and Rourke, 1988, Ozols and Rourke, 1991; but see Spellacy and Peter, 1978).

The hypothesis advanced by Rourke et al. can be formulated as follows: at least in part and at an early age, deficiencies in certain neuro-psychological fields determine the appearance of difficulties in arithmetic. This hypothesis results in two predictions. Firstly, performances in neuro-psychological tests at a moment of development m, predict a significant part of the variance observed in tests of arithmetic performances conducted at time m+n. Secondly, this prediction continues to apply after the contribution of age and development have been partialled out.

This hypothesis was tested by asking 177 children to participate in two sets of tests administered at an interval of 8 months. The first set contained the neuro-psychological test, two drawing tests permitting a global evaluation of subjects' level of development, and a set of arithmetic exercises. The second set comprised the arithmetic exercises only.

Section snippets

Participants

One hundred and eighty-nine school children in the last year of nursery school (average age: 5;9 years, range: 5;2–6;6 years) took part in the first set of tests. One hundred and seventy-seven of them took part in the second set in first grade the following year (average age: 6;5 years, range: 5;9–7;1 years).

Material and procedure

Three types of tasks were administered individually at the end of nursery school: neuro-psychological tests, drawing tests which evaluated the level of intellectual development, and

General performance

The mean score for the number tests was 8.65 (SD=4.39) in nursery school, 11.23 (SD=4.78) in first grade.

The mean score for the draw-a-person test was 13.58 (SD=3.92), a value which corresponds to the normal score for the age at which the test was taken (i.e. 5;9 years, see Barrouillet and Fayol, 1994). As far as the lozenge drawing was concerned, 90 subjects out of 177 had a score of 0, compared with 73 subjects scoring 1 and 14 subjects scoring 2. A global developmental score was calculated

Discussion

Our research has shown, in a population of more than 150 children, a correlation between performances in neuro-psychological tests and arithmetical performances and thus confirms, in a younger population (5 to 6 years), the correlation already observed in 9-year-old children and adolescents. The longitudinal nature of this study also enabled us to establish the direction of this connection: it was the performances in the neuro-psychological tests measured at 5 years of age which predicted a

Unlinked references

Not listed: Barrouillet et al., 1994. Please add a reference or delete/modify the citation.

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