This study examined the nonsymbolic numerical magnitude processing in Chinese first graders with marked mathematics difficulties (MD) and typically achieving peers. The approximate number system (ANS) view has suggested that children with MD may have deficit in the internal representation of magnitudes. Chinese first-graders with MD were compared with age-matched typically achieving children on approximate numerical comparison, approximate addition and multiplication tasks. Children with MD were found to perform significantly worse than their age-matched controls in all tasks. Students before formal instruction in multiplication yielded an above-chance level of performance in approximate multiplication task, which suggested the existence of approximate multiplicative ability. After formal instruction in multiplication, the MD group performed significantly worse than controls in approximate multiplication task and arithmetic tests. Only normally achieving children showed significant improvement after formal instruction. This study provided further evidence for an intuitive numerical processing in arithmetic operation, and the result had significant implication to the diagnosis of MD and intervention on mathematics difficulties. / published_or_final_version / Educational Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

published_or_final_version / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

Thesis (Psy.D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 113-129).

Following recent research linking executive functioning to children 's skills, this thesis explores the relationship between children's inhibition effciency and mathematical ability. This relationship was initially explored using six Stroop task variants containing verbal, numerical or pictorial stimuli. The results indicated that, in the numerical variants only, children of lower mathematical abilty possess less effcient inhibition mechanisms, compared to children of higher mathematical ability. Thus, it is proposed that low-abilty mathematicians may possess a domain-specifc problem with the inhibition of numerical information. The increased interference scores of the lowability mathematicians, however, were only evident under those conditions which also required a degree of switching between temporary strategies. A series of experiments also examined children's ability to inhibit prepotent responses and switch between strategies whilst performing mental arithmetic. The aim of these experiments was to provide a more naturalistic and appropriate exploration of the hypothesized relationship between mathematical abilty and inhibition effciency. These results also indicated that low-ability mathematicians possess fewer executive resources to cope with increased inhibition demands. A further systematic manipulation of switching and inhibition demands revealed that the low-abilty mathematicians experienced a particular difculty when both types of inhibitory demands (i.e. inhibiting a prepotent response and inhibiting an established strategy)were present. This suggests that their reduction in inhibition effciency stems from the amount of demands, rather than the type of demands placed on the executive system. Furthermore, the results indicated that inhibition effciency may be a specifc element of mathematical ability rather than an element of intellectual ability in general. The final study involved a group of low-abilty mathematicians and examined the disturbing impact of irrelevant information on their arithmetic word problem solving abilty. This study revealed that irrelevant numerical (IN) information has a more detrimental impact on performance than irrelevant verbal (IV) information. It is proposed that it is more difcult to inhibit IN information, as it appears more relevant to intentions, and thus, enters WM with a higher level of activations. In sum, the results indicate that low-abilty mathematicians have a reduced domainspecific working memory capacity, characterized by ineffcient inhibition mechanisms.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Toronto, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 123-124).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--George Mason University, 2008. / Vita: p. 75. Thesis director: Ellen Rowe. Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Aug. 28, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 68-74). Also issued in print.

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 24, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Dissertation advisor: Dr. Jean Ispa and Dr. Duane Rudy. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

published_or_final_version / Clinical Psychology / Doctoral / Doctor of Psychology

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.