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Impaired neural processing of transitive relations in children with math learning difficulty

Math learning difficulty (i.e., MLD) is common in children and can have far-reaching consequences in personal and professional life. Converging evidence suggests that MLD is associated with impairments in the intraparietal sulcus (IPS). However, the role that these impairments play in MLD remains un...

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Autores principales: Schwartz, Flora, Epinat-Duclos, Justine, Léone, Jessica, Poisson, Alice, Prado, Jérôme
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6308383/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30389345
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2018.10.020
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author Schwartz, Flora
Epinat-Duclos, Justine
Léone, Jessica
Poisson, Alice
Prado, Jérôme
author_facet Schwartz, Flora
Epinat-Duclos, Justine
Léone, Jessica
Poisson, Alice
Prado, Jérôme
author_sort Schwartz, Flora
collection PubMed
description Math learning difficulty (i.e., MLD) is common in children and can have far-reaching consequences in personal and professional life. Converging evidence suggests that MLD is associated with impairments in the intraparietal sulcus (IPS). However, the role that these impairments play in MLD remains unclear. Although it is often assumed that IPS deficits affect core numerical abilities, the IPS is also involved in several non-numerical processes that may contribute to math skills. For instance, the IPS supports transitive reasoning (i.e., the ability to integrate relations such as A > B and B > C to infer that A > C), a skill that is central to many aspects of math learning in children. Here we measured fMRI activity of 8- to 12-year-olds with MLD and typically developing (TD) peers while they listened to stories that included transitive relations. Children also answered questions evaluating whether transitive inferences were made during story comprehension. Compared to non-transitive relations (e.g., A > B and C > D), listening to transitive relations (e.g., A > B and B > C) was associated with enhanced activity in the IPS in TD children. In children with MLD, the difference in activity between transitive and non-transitive relations in the IPS was (i) non-reliable and (ii) smaller than in TD children. Finally, children with MLD were less accurate than TD peers when making transitive inferences based on transitive relations. Thus, a deficit in the online processing of transitive relations in the IPS might contribute to math difficulties in children with MLD.
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spelling pubmed-63083832018-12-28 Impaired neural processing of transitive relations in children with math learning difficulty Schwartz, Flora Epinat-Duclos, Justine Léone, Jessica Poisson, Alice Prado, Jérôme Neuroimage Clin Article Math learning difficulty (i.e., MLD) is common in children and can have far-reaching consequences in personal and professional life. Converging evidence suggests that MLD is associated with impairments in the intraparietal sulcus (IPS). However, the role that these impairments play in MLD remains unclear. Although it is often assumed that IPS deficits affect core numerical abilities, the IPS is also involved in several non-numerical processes that may contribute to math skills. For instance, the IPS supports transitive reasoning (i.e., the ability to integrate relations such as A > B and B > C to infer that A > C), a skill that is central to many aspects of math learning in children. Here we measured fMRI activity of 8- to 12-year-olds with MLD and typically developing (TD) peers while they listened to stories that included transitive relations. Children also answered questions evaluating whether transitive inferences were made during story comprehension. Compared to non-transitive relations (e.g., A > B and C > D), listening to transitive relations (e.g., A > B and B > C) was associated with enhanced activity in the IPS in TD children. In children with MLD, the difference in activity between transitive and non-transitive relations in the IPS was (i) non-reliable and (ii) smaller than in TD children. Finally, children with MLD were less accurate than TD peers when making transitive inferences based on transitive relations. Thus, a deficit in the online processing of transitive relations in the IPS might contribute to math difficulties in children with MLD. Elsevier 2018-10-23 /pmc/articles/PMC6308383/ /pubmed/30389345 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2018.10.020 Text en © 2018 The Authors http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Schwartz, Flora
Epinat-Duclos, Justine
Léone, Jessica
Poisson, Alice
Prado, Jérôme
Impaired neural processing of transitive relations in children with math learning difficulty
title Impaired neural processing of transitive relations in children with math learning difficulty
title_full Impaired neural processing of transitive relations in children with math learning difficulty
title_fullStr Impaired neural processing of transitive relations in children with math learning difficulty
title_full_unstemmed Impaired neural processing of transitive relations in children with math learning difficulty
title_short Impaired neural processing of transitive relations in children with math learning difficulty
title_sort impaired neural processing of transitive relations in children with math learning difficulty
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6308383/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30389345
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2018.10.020
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