1. The Neuropsychology of Math NASP 2012 conference Attended by our School Psychologist Jane Mendoza, M.A. Ed.S. School Psychologist

2. Constructs Working Memory Visual Spatial Functioning
Ability to hold representational knowledge in mind, coupled with mental flexibility to manipulate this knowledge in whatever manner we choose
Visual Spatial Functioning
Ability to think in pictures
Executive Function
What to do: Developing a plan/strategy

3. Disorders in Math
Verbal
Procedural
Semantic
Visual-Spatial

4. Disorders in Math: Verbal
Students who have difficulties with counting and rapid number identification skills, deficits in retrieving or recalling stored math facts
Represents a disorder in the verbal representations of numbers, and the ability to use language-based procedures to assist in arithmetic fact retrieval skills – These students may also have difficulties in reading and spelling
DEFICITS: counting, rapid number identification, retrieval of stored facts, addition and multiplication facts, may have coexisting reading and writing difficulties

5. Disorders in Math: Procedural
Represents a disorder in the ability to transcode numeric systems into meaningful language systems
Just as children must ultimately link phonemes with graphemes in order to learn the phonological code to reading, children must also learn the language of math by linking the verbal name of a numeral with its numeric representation
Children with this subtype often have difficulty reading numbers aloud, and may struggle to write numbers from dictation
Children with a procedural error subtype tend to have learning difficulties solely related to math.
DEFICITS: writing numbers from dictation, reading numbers aloud, math computational procedures, syntactical rules of problem solving, deficits with division and regrouping procedures in subtraction

6. Disorders in Math: Semantic
An ability to decipher magnitude representations among numbers
Knowledge of the operations
Allow for value judgment and evaluation of plausible response
DEFICITS: Magnitude of representations, transcoding math operations, conceptual understanding of math, estimation skills

7. Disorders in Math: Visual-Spatial
Difficulties with aligning a column of numbers; visual perception of numbers
Spatial attributes such as size, location, or orientation and mental rotation, magnitude comparison

8. USA Decline in Math
According to the trend in International Mathematics and Science Study 2004 (TIMSS, 2004), over the past 30 years math and science scores of American students have remained stagnant, while scores from industrialized nations have soared. Upon closer inspection – much information for educators to glean from data:

10. Four Reasons for Decline:
Time
Too much focus on the answers
Dry and boring material
Language of math matters

11. Time
Science and math not a priority, math is taught late afternoon and for only short periods of time.

12. Focus on answers
Too much focus on the answers There’s a difference between getting answers and learning procedures rather than learning to think quantitatively about numbers

13. Dry and Boring Material
Dry and boring material! Math needs to be fun and be presented in games and activities to eliminate the anxiety factor.
Cushion Syndrome – born with too much cortisol in the brain
Anxiety creation of cortisol in the brain may mimic Cushing Syndrome which can result in a working memory deficit.

14. Language of math matters
Building numbers around base 10 matters
Most European-derived languages such as English or French do not correspond to simple base-ten ordinal structure of the Arabic number system
On the other hand, most Asian languages possess linguistic structures much more consistent with a numeric counting system: i.e., Asian languages count past ten by going ‘ten-one’, ten-two’, ‘ten-three’, etc., whereas English deviates from the base-ten counting structure and counts past ten as ‘eleven, twelve, thirteen,’ etc.
Consequently, most American children conceive of ‘twelve’ as a collection of 12 disparate objects
Asian children have built into their linguistic counting structure a more lucid representation of ‘twelve’, as being the collection of one set of ‘ten’ objects and one set of ‘two’ objects.

15. Days of School Work ethic deficit relative to Asian countries
United States
180 days of school
6 hours per day
South Korea
220 days of school
10 hours per day
Japan
240 days of school
Work ethic deficit relative to Asian countries

16. The vast majority of American children have lost interest in math and science:
84% of American students surveyed would rather do any one of the following than their math homework: a) clean their room, b) eat their vegetables, c) go the dentist, or d) take out the garbage.
1/3 of students surveyed reported they liked math (2/3s don’t like math)
43 % of students reported they had a difficult time understanding math and 45% indicated math was boring.

17. Difficulties -
Calculator usage by students resulted in poor math performance
Overseas, calculators are not used
Calculators do not help to develop number sense
Use double check work (self-monitoring), otherwise you’re robbing students of number sense
Visual Spatial Sketch Pad – Working memory processing deficit = erased visual spatial sketch pad
Students resort to use fingers to count – We need to help them with an externalized visual spatial sketch pad
Set emotional climate/tone in class. Anxiety interferes with cognition

18. Interventions # line on desk Calculator (for checking work)
Reduce anxiety in classroom
Encourage use of visual cues (pencil/paper jot down equations) to help anchor work
Use mnemonic techniques to help with recalling algorithmic steps/procedures
Teach multiple ways to problem solving – No more than 3 otherwise too confusing – let student select easiest way for him/her.
Avoid skill drills (creates anxiety)
Color code math signs
Use graph paper and label the columns
Teach students within a context, not in isolation

19. Thank You Jane Mendoza, M.A.Ed. S. School Psychologist