Real life math

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Dyscalculia: News from the web:

The “we are teachers” blog has a great free program to teach children financial skills and how to deal with things they will be confronted with in real life. Adventures in Math is a super program that will help to show them that math has important practical applications.

Read all about it: HERE

Impact of spatial training on math performance

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Dyscalculia: News from the web:

It was known from studies that spatial training improves math performance, but what in the spatial training exactly improved that math performance most. A new study revealed that:

age, use of concrete manipulatives, and type of transfer (“near” vs. “far”) moderated the effects of spatial training on mathematics. As the age of participants increased from 3 to 20 years, the effects of spatial training also increased in size. Spatial training paradigms that used concrete materials (e.g., manipulatives) were more effective than those that did not (e.g., computerized training). Larger transfer effects were observed for mathematics outcomes more closely aligned to the spatial training delivered compared to outcomes more distally related. None of the other variables examined (training dosage, spatial gains, posttest timing, type of control group, experimental design, publication status) moderated the effects

Read all about it: HERE

A new treatment for ADHD?

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Dyscalculia: News from the web:

The ADHD study, published in Nutrients, found that a prescribed amount of caffeine may increase the attention and retention of people with the disorder. They made this discovery through animal models, finding the substance “increases capacity and flexibility in both spatial attention and selective attention, as well as in working memory and short-term memory,” .

The results so far have been positive, although the team is aware that some of the other symptoms of ADHD like hyperactivity and impulsivity may be exaggerated by caffeine. More research is needed, with the team suggesting it may just be appropriate when the symptoms are purely attentional based and should only be administered under appropriate medical supervision.

Read all about it: HERE

Arithmetic learning in children: An fMRI training study

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Dyscalculia: News from the web:

This article is from the latest Neuropsychologia and describes how fMRI can show what changes in the brain when you learn arithmetic. At the start of learning you need a strategy to work out a multiplication for which we use areas in the prefrontal cortex and the Intraparietal Sulcus and gradually you can more and more retrieve the answers from memory and activate other areas. These changes can occur already after a few weeks of learning.  It happens that the changes in adults differ from the changes learning makes in the brain of children.

Read all about it: HERE

Math in real life

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Dyscalculia: News from the web:

It is important to show children that math is not just in a classroom but everywhere around you. Also you need to take every opportunity to introduce children with math in a playful manner. The Decoda Litery solutions blog brings this very nice article about math related activities in- and outside the house.

Read all about it: HERE