Study on Visual and Auditory Perception Characteristics of Children with Different Type of Mathematics Learning Disability

ABSTRACT

In order to address the problem of the underlying mechanism of mathematics learning disability (MLD), in the current research, we investigated the visual and auditory perceptions of elementary school children with visual and auditory MLD from the first to fourth grade. We found that children with visual mathematics learning disability (VMLD) and those with auditory mathematics learning disability (AMLD) all had problems in both visual and auditory perceptions. After further analysis, we found that children with VMLD suffered from more serious problems with visual perception than with auditory perception while it was the other way around for children with AMLD. Children with visual and auditory mathematics learning disability (V-AMLD) had both serious problems with visual and auditory perceptions. It thus can be seen that the visual Arabic code of number was more closely tied with the visual perception while the auditory-verbal code of number more closely associated with the auditory perception. The results shed light on the subtypes of MLD and contributed to the intervention.

KEYWORDS:

• Auditory perception
• mathematics learning disability
• visual perception

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful for the school’s principal and staff who granted us permission to implement our research in their schools. And we are also thanked for children who are willing to participate in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Beijing Education and Science Project under Grant 2013 (ABA13014); the key project of Ministry of Education under Grant DBA130218; An opening project of National Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University under Grant Beijing (KF2011YB01); and 2018 Comprehensive Discipline Construction Fund of Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University.