Difficulty performing certain voluntary gestures and actions may have a greater impact on adults’ mathematics performance than previously thought.
- Adults with dyspraxia, or developmental coordination disorder, perform less accurately on simple mental calculation tasks, suggesting slower processing speed on this simple numerical task.
- These patients rely more on working memory to perform even simple arithmetic tasks.
- According to the authors, their study highlights the need for appropriate educational approaches.
Dyspraxia, also known as developmental coordination disorder, affects 5-7% of children aged 5-11. According to Health Insuranceboys are affected two to four times more than girls. Dyspraxic children complain of multiple difficulties affecting their daily lives, particularly at school. In detail, the latter have difficulty getting dressed, doing their hair, preparing their schoolbag and/or tying their shoes. During meals, they struggle to pour themselves a drink and stain themselves easily. In addition, affected young people have difficulty handling certain objects and drop or break them. In addition, they have difficulty writing, drawing and orienting themselves in space.
Dyspraxic adults relied more on working memory
Previous research has shown that children with dyspraxia tend to perform worse in mathematics than those with neurotypical functioning, which is considered normal. However, until now, no studies have examined the cognitive and emotional factors affecting the mathematics performance of adults with dyspraxia, while the difficulties encountered by patients during childhood often persist with age. In a new study, scientists from the University of Surrey (UK) have analyzed the role of working memory (WM) and mathematics anxiety on the performance of adults with dyspraxia.
For the purposes of the study, volunteers performed as many simple mental arithmetic tasks as possible in one minute. This task was assumed to be fully automated in adults, with little use of working memory. According to the results, published in the journal Acta Psychologicapeople with this developmental coordination disorder performed fewer tasks accurately. Further analysis showed that the math performance of adults with dyspraxia was more strongly related to working memory than that of the neurotypical population. This suggests that these patients lacked automation in these tasks and had to rely on working memory for additional support, making them slower and less accurate in their responses.
Dyspraxia: “targeted interventions to improve performance in mathematics”
In addition to having poorer working memory and math performance, adults with dyspraxia reported higher levels of math anxiety. From these findings, “Educators can develop targeted interventions to improve mathematics performance and overall cognitive well-being in people with dyspraxia,” concluded scientists.
