What makes counting count? Verbal and visuo-spatial contributions to typical and atypical number development

doi:10.1016/S0022-0965(03)00026-2

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Volume 85, Issue 1, May 2003, Pages 50-62

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-0965(03)00026-2 Get rights and content

Abstract

Williams Syndrome (WS) is marked by a relative strength in verbal cognition coupled with a serious impairment in non-verbal cognition. A strong deficit in numerical cognition has been anecdotally reported in this disorder; however, its nature has not been systematically investigated. Here, we tested 14 children with WS (mean age=7 years 2 months), 14 typically developing controls individually matched on visuo-spatial ability (mean age=3 years 5 months) as well as a larger group of typically developing controls (mean age=3 years 4 months) on two tasks to assess their understanding that counting determines the exact quantity of sets (cardinality principle). The understanding of the cardinality principle in children with WS is extremely delayed and only at the level predicted by their visuo-spatial MA. In this clinical group, only language accounted for a significant amount of the variance in cardinality understanding, whereas in the normal comparison group only visuo-spatial competence predicted the variance. The present findings suggest that visuo-spatial ability plays a greater role than language ability in the actual development of cardinality understanding in typically developing children, whereas the opposite obtains for the clinical group.

Section snippets

Participants

A sample of 15 children with Williams syndrome was recruited through the Williams Syndrome Foundation, a UK-based charity that supports parents and affected individuals. All of these children had been diagnosed clinically as well as by means of the fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) genetic test for deletion of the elastin gene. The mean chronological age (CA) of the children with WS was 7 years, 2 months (range: 6;0 years to 11;5 years). This age range was chosen because we assumed, on

“How many” task

Children with WS were proficient at reciting the count sequence when counting 2–6 objects. Only 14% of children with WS (2/14) did not count all 7 objects correctly. Of the 2 children who failed to obtain a ceiling score on this task, one made a single mistake and the other failed to count 3 of the 7 sets correctly. In the group of individually matched controls, 28% of the children (4/14) did not count all 7 objects correctly, but only 1 of these children made more than 3 mistakes. There was no

Discussion

The results reported in this paper represent a first step towards a systematic investigation of numerical cognition in young children with Williams syndrome. Our findings show that children with WS can recite the count sequence for small numbers and make almost no errors. This is in line with results from a study by Thomas et al. (2002) using speeded naming, in which individuals with WS were accurate and fast at naming numerals. However, the present findings highlight the fact that counting of

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a studentship from the Williams Syndrome Foundation, UK and an MRC Programme Grant No. G9715642 to AK-S. We would like to thank all the families and children who volunteered for this research, and particularly the Williams Syndrome Foundation, UK for their support and help with recruitment. We thank Chris Jarrold and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. We would also like to thank Gaia Scerif for helpful comments on an earlier draft and Jeremy Miles

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Citation Excerpt :
In addition, understanding of the word ‘some’ was extremely poor. Therefore, although individuals with WS have little problems learning the counting names and can count sets, their understanding of concepts associated with counting is delayed and atypical (Ansari et al., 2003). Very few studies have examined specific academic mathematical abilities such as addition, multiplication or digit recognition.
The current systematic review is the first to systematically explore and synthesis research to date on mathematical abilities in Williams syndrome (WS), a rare genetic disorder that results in an uneven cognitive profile. As mathematical development is complex and relies on both domain-specific and domain-general abilities, it is currently not clear what mathematical abilities have been examined in WS and also what the current gaps in this research area are.
A total of 27 studies across 22 publications were identified through a systematic review search process.
Overall, all mathematical abilities, except for simple counting and subitizing abilities, were reported to be impaired but in line with overall mental-age abilities. However, the literature to date has not established the underlying causes of these mathematical difficulties in WS. Some studies suggested that mathematical abilities in WS follow an atypical developmental pathway with a greater reliance on verbal abilities than in typical development but coupled with impaired understanding of counting and knowledge of the number system more broadly. However, most included studies used different assessments of mathematical skills and there is a lack of studies that have examined more than one particular aspect of mathematical development within the same study. In addition, studies have often included large age ranges and small participant samples, despite the known large individual variability in WS.
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The importance of spatial language for early numerical development in preschool: Going beyond verbal number skills
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From vision to cognition: potential contributions of cerebral visual impairment to neurodevelopmental disorders
2023, Journal of Neural Transmission

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What makes counting count? Verbal and visuo-spatial contributions to typical and atypical number development

Abstract

Section snippets

Participants

“How many” task

Discussion

Acknowledgements

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

Brain and Cognition

Cognition

Cognitive Psychology

The psychological characteristics of infantile hypercalcemia: A preliminary investigation

Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology

Dissociation between language and cognitive functions in Williams syndrome

Supravalvular aortic stenosis: a complex syndrome with and without mental retardation

Birth Defects

The development of ordinal numerical competence in young children

Cognitive Psychology

A featural analysis of preschoolers’ counting knowledge

Developmental Psychology

Precis of the number sense

Mind & Language