Assessment and Intervention

Assessment and Intervention

Identifying children ‘at risk’ for later mathematical difficulties

How do we know which children might struggle with mathematics when they enter primary school?

Prof. Bull’s work looked at simple measures to determine the early numeracy skills of 6 year olds to help identify which children may go on to have difficulties acquiring maths skills in the first year of school.

Being able to estimate number position on a number line was a good predictor of later mathematical ability. There is still debate about what this measure tells us about a child's understanding of mathematical concepts. But it may be an efficient screening tool for math difficulties.

If you want to know more about this study, you can find more information about it here .

Future work will examine the impact of early intervention, focused on number-line estimation, in supporting children’s mathematical learning.

If you are interested in children’s early numerical skills or screening/intervention for mathematical difficulties, please contact Rebecca Bull at r.bull@mq.edu.au

Intervention to support working memory and numeracy skills.

Students who struggle to learn mathematics often have other difficulties such as:

• limited basic numerical skills (e.g., mapping between symbolic and non-symbolic representations of number),
• difficulties remembering and manipulating pieces of information for short periods of time (difficulties with working memory),
• reading difficulties,
• all of the above!

Prof. Bull and her team have developed a game-based intervention to support 7-year olds enrolled in a learning support for mathematics program. The games aim to develop working memory and/or basic numeracy skills.

As well as looking at whether the intervention has been successful in supporting children’s math ability, the team also examined whether the intervention is more suitable for some groups of children (e.g., children who only have math difficulties compared with those who show difficulties in both math and reading).

You can find the study here

If you are interested in numeracy interventions or the impact of cognitive skills on math achievement, please contact Rebecca Bull at r.bull@mq.edu.au

Developing a spatial reasoning mathematics program

Prof. Mulligan and Susan Busatto have participated in the development and evaluation of a Spatial Reasoning Mathematics Program (SRMP) for primary school students. This program is comprised of six spatial components:

• Patterning
• 2D shapes
• 2D and 3D relationships
• Perimeter and ratio
• Directionality
• Perspective taking

An initial study has shown benefits from participating in the program for pattern and structure as well as spatial ability.

If you want to know more about this study, you can find more information about it here.

If you want to know more about the project, you can find a summary here.

If you are interested in spatial reasoning and mathematics, please contact Joanne Mulligan at joanne.mulligan@mq.edu.au or Susan Bussato at susan.bussato@mq.edu.au

Centre-funded projects

The Macquarie University Numeracy Assessment Battery

Centre members Saskia Kohnen, Karin Landerl and Melanie Porter with Sally Howell, a team of paediatric neurospychologists at the Children’s Hospital Westmead (Ruth Brunsdon, Sara Coombes and Tracey Williams) and a programmer (Pip Jones) are working on the development of MUNA (The Macquarie University Numeracy Assessment battery).

MUNA will allow to empirically test current models of numeracy processing from a developmental neuropsychological perspective. It will also fill a gap between theory and practice, as it will help teachers/clinicians to find specific gaps in a child's numeracy knowledge which will help them to devise targeted interventions. To assist with further development, this project has just received funding from the Centre.

If you are interested in MUNA please contact Saskia Kohnen at saskia.kohnen@mq.edu.au

Identifying implicit pattern recognition

Centre members Paul Sowman, Joanne Mulligan, Rebecca Bull and Fu Yu Kwok are working on a project to study implicit pattern recognition abilities.

This study aims at extending research related to pattern recognition by studying children’s implicit reactions to pattern violations while their neural activity is being recorded by the MEG. Children’s neural responses will be assessed using machine learning methods which can identify both when and where in the brain the pattern violation is detected.

This project has just received funding from the Centre to start collecting data.

If you are interested in this project please contact Paul Sowman at paul.sowman@mq.edu.au