Find better ways of presenting maths for preterm children, researchers say

Researchers now understand better why preterm babies go on to have mathematics difficulties and have called for schools to find better ways of presenting information to meet their needs.

Children born very preterm (at or before 32 weeks) are born at a critical stage in brain development and are at high risk for mathematics learning difficulties that are out of proportion to other academic and cognitive deficits.

Previous research has shown children who are born very preterm have a 39.4% chance of having general mathematic impairment compared to 14.9% of those born at term (39 to 41 weeks).

The cause of mathematics difficulties in very preterm children is unknown, however following a two-year study researchers suggest it is different in nature from dyscalculia – a condition that affects the ability to acquire arithmetical skills – and due to deficits in visuospatial processing and working memory.

Visuospatial processing concerns our ability to process and interpret visual information about where objects are in space. Addition, for example, is a mental operation of “seeing” sets of things being put together.

BRC-supported Professor Neil Marlow and his colleagues assessed 115 very preterm children aged 8–10 in school with a control group of 77 term-born classmates over two years. Achievement in mathematics, working memory, visuospatial processing, inhibition, and processing speed were assessed using standardised tests. Numerical representations and specific mathematics skills were assessed using experimental tests.

Very preterm children had significantly poorer mathematics achievement, working memory, and visuospatial skills than term-born controls. Although preterm children had poorer performance in specific mathematics skills, there was no evidence their representations of numbers were inaccurate.

Professor Marlow insists interventions targeting general cognitive problems, rather than numerical representations, may improve very preterm children's mathematics achievement. One example is evidence that if a preterm child is presented with a sequential series of tasks they tend to do well, whereas if they are presented with a simultaneous series of tasks typically they do not do well. Professor Marlow said: “When you have a pre-term child in the classroom and they are not doing particularly well at maths, from our results putting them in a remedial maths class probably won’t help. Schools need to concentrate on trying to find ways of presenting information so the child can access the learning they need. We know working memory and processing speed is important. We need to find interventions that are going to support those”.

Regarding hopes for intervention, the team are currently trying to measure working memory and processing in infancy related to brain growth and development in the preterm period. This can be assessed using MRI and longitudinal development into childhood.

Professor Marlow said: “We are trying to look for biomarkers of these deficits that are going to pop-up later in the life. We can then use them to identify successful therapies in the early neonatal period and target children at risk with new interventions”.

To read Mathematics Difficulties in Very Preterm Children: No Evidence for Developmental Dyscalculia in full click here.