Cognitive strategy interventions improve word problem solving and working memory in children with math disabilities

“Some studies have found a generalization to non-targeted related processes (visual WM training was related to recognizing visual spatial patterns, Klingberg et al., 2005), or a delayed sleeper effect (Holmes et al., 2009) onmath, but strategies to improve or compensate for WM limitations has not…”

“…related processes (visual WM training was related to recognizing visual spatial patterns, Klingberg et al., 2005), or a delayed sleeper effect (Holmes et al., 2009) onmath, but strategies to improve or compensate for WM limitations has not been shown, at this point, to make direct or…”

“The 25th percentile cut-off score on standardized math measures has been commonly used to identify children at risk (e.g., Fletcher et al., 1989; Siegel and Ryan, 1989).”

“Because WM tasks were assumed to tap into a measure of controlled attention referred to as updating (e.g., Miyake et al., 2000), an experimental updating task, adapted from Morris and Jones (1990), was also administered.”

“ORIGINAL RESEARCH published: 04 August 2015 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01099 Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 1 August 2015 | Volume 6 | Article 1099 Edited by: Silvia Lanfranchi, University of Padova, Italy Reviewed by: Sara Caviola, University of Padova, Italy Claudia…”

“Covariate Several studies have found that WM was unrelated to problem solving accuracy when reading proficiency scores were entered into the regression analyses (Swanson et al., 1993; Fuchs et al., 2006).”

“This training was motivated by several studies showing that learning to differentiate between relevant and irrelevant information is significantly correlated with solution accuracy and students at risk for MD (e.g., Passolunghi and Siegel, 2001; Passolunghi et al., 2001).”

“This inference on our part is consistent with several studies that suggest WM is related to attentional control (e.g., Engle et al., 1999; Bayliss et al., 2003; Kane et al., 2007), and attentional control is important when performing complex problem solving tasks (e.”

“Based on the assumption that visual WM in children with MD is relatively intact (Swanson and Jerman, 2006), we anticipated that visual-spatial strategies would yield higher accuracy scores when compared to verbal strategy conditions.”

“A version of the Turley-Ames and Whitfield (2003) operation span task, modified for children (Swanson et al., 2010), was administered at pretest and posttest.”

“Although several studies have identified some of the cognitive difficulties in problem solving in children at risk for math difficulties (Swanson and Beebe-Frankenberger, 2004; Andersson, 2010; Fuchs et al., 2010; Geary, 2010), few studies have directly linked deficiencies on cognitive measures to treatment outcomes.”

“…to Developmental Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology Received: 06 April 2015 Accepted: 17 July 2015 Published: 04 August 2015 Citation: Swanson HL (2015) Cognitive strategy interventions improve word problem solving and working memory in children with math disabilities.”

“This training was motivated by several studies showing that learning to differentiate between relevant and irrelevant information is significantly correlated with solution accuracy and students at risk for MD (e.g., Passolunghi and Siegel, 2001; Passolunghi et al., 2001).”

“Although several studies have identified some of the cognitive difficulties in problem solving in children at risk for math difficulties (Swanson and Beebe-Frankenberger, 2004; Andersson, 2010; Fuchs et al., 2010; Geary, 2010), few studies have directly linked deficiencies on cognitive measures to treatment outcomes.”

“This task assessed the child’s ability to remember numerical information embedded in a short sentence (Swanson, 1992, 2013).”

“Although several studies have identified some of the cognitive difficulties in problem solving in children at risk for math difficulties (Swanson and Beebe-Frankenberger, 2004; Andersson, 2010; Fuchs et al., 2010; Geary, 2010), few studies have directly linked deficiencies on cognitive measures to treatment outcomes.”

“ORIGINAL RESEARCH published: 04 August 2015 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01099 Frontiers in Psychology | www.frontiersin.org 1 August 2015 | Volume 6 | Article 1099 Edited by: Silvia Lanfranchi, University of Padova, Italy Reviewed by: Sara Caviola, University of Padova, Italy Claudia Maehler, University of Hildesheim, Ger…”

“A version of the Turley-Ames and Whitfield (2003) operation span task, modified for children (Swanson et al., 2010), was administered at pretest and posttest.”

“The 25th percentile cut-off score on standardized math measures has been commonly used to identify children at risk (e.g., Fletcher et al., 1989; Siegel and Ryan, 1989).”

“Given the importance of WMC in problem solving performance, this study will test whether strategy instruction compensates for individual differences in WMC in children at risk for math difficulties (MD) on problem solving tasks.”

“This task assessed the child’s ability to remember numerical information embedded in a short sentence (Swanson, 1992, 2013).”

“…on learners with different learning disabilities, such as reading disability (i.e., Boulineau et al., 2004; Ciullo, Falcomata, Pfannenstiel, & Billingsley, 2015; Ciullo, Falcomata, & Vaughn, 2015), math learning disability (Swanson, 2015), and general learning disability (DiCecco & Gleason, 2002).”

“These deficits may hinder the students’ ability to successfully solve math word problems (Andersson & Lyxell, 2007; Fuchs et al., 2008; Peake, Jiménez, Rodríguez, Bisschop, & Villarroel, 2015; Swanson, 2012, 2015).”

“…scant, and pertains primarily to teaching more effective cognitive strategies to deal with a task (e.g., Bjorklund & Douglas, 1997; Brehmer, Li, Müller, von Oertzen, & Lindenberger, 2007; Kliegl, Smith, & Baltes, 1990; Kramer & Willis, 2002; Swanson, 2014, 2015; Verhaeghen & Marcoen, 1996).”

“In addition, direct training on arithmetic word problem solving strategy not only enhanced children's word problem skills but also efficiently transferred to gains on working memory assessments (Swanson, 2015).”

“This finding fits well with previous studies demonstrating that psychological interventions can improve WM capacity (Yogo and Fujihara, 2008; Mrazek et al., 2013; Swanson, 2015; Flores and Berenbaum, 2017).”

“The results showed that strategy training had a positive impact on both problem solving and visuo-spatial WM, but the effect of strategy was moderated by individuals WMC (Swanson, 2015).”

“L. S. Fuchs et al. (2014) and Swanson (2015) obtained aptitude-by-treatment interactions (ATIs) such that at-risk children with relatively strong working memory benefited more from interventions involving strategy- and fluency-building, whereas at-risk children with weaker working memory profited…”

“However, there are students with learning difficulties who have high executive functioning capacities (Swanson, 2014, 2015; Swanson et al., 2013) who become inefficient when the monitoring process of simple cognitive strategies (Jackson et al., 2014).”

“…(Geary, 2011; Jacob & Parkinson, 2015; Niedo, Abbott, & Berninger, 2014; Peng, Namkung, Barnes, & Sun, 2016; Raghubar, Barnes, & Hecht, 2010; Swanson, 2015), as well as to social cognitive skills (Dennis, Agostino, Roncadin, & Levin, 2009), it is possible that deficits in WM resulting from…”

“than other subjects, as there is an emphasis on both the language of words and the symbols of mathematics (Freeman & Crawford, 2008; Harper & de Jong, 2004; Moschkovich, 2002; Swanson, 2015).”

“…that try to improve EF in the context of learning activities that can be part of the curriculum, the results promise to enhance academic skills in the domain of mathematics problem-solving (Swanson, 2015), reading comprehension (GarcíaMadruga et al., 2013), and reasoning (Ariës et al., 2014).”

“Two/task One Number of words/ word pairs generated https://doi.org/10.12963/csd.20768838 https://www.e-csd.org ent study were inspired from the existing word problem solving tasks (Swanson, 2015) and reasoning tasks (Eweida, Mekail, & Ramadan, 2017).”

“…in driving (focus on the driving task while filtering information, adapting to the road conditions, etc.) (49), and they include inhibition, cognitive flexibility and WM. WM involves higher cognitive functions such as decision-making (50), mathematics-solving ability (51) and reasoning (52).”

“However, in this review, multiple studies (Ciullo, Falcomata, & Vaughn, 2015; DiCecco & Gleason, 2002; Swanson, 2015) explicitly depicted students’ characteristic (e.g., reading skills, language status), or grouped students based on their academic ability (e.g., low-achieving students and…”

“With multiple processes involved, working memory naturally plays a major role in solution accuracy (Friedman et al., 2018; Swanson, 2015; Swanson & Beebe-Frankenberger, 2004; Zheng et al., 2011).”

“…(Lee, 2011), Computer-Based Story (Gunbas, 2014), mathematics vocabulary (Sepeng and Madzorera, 2014), verbal and visual strategy instruction (Swanson, 2014), pattern-seeking strategy (Erdogan, 2015) and empirical mathematical reasoning (Papadopoulos, 2015) has enhanced mathematical…”

“Berdasarkan kondisi ini, para ahli merekomendasikan rancangan instruksi khusus kesulitan pemecahan soal cerita matematika bagi siswa sekolah dasar (Swanson, 2015; Swanson, Moran, Lussier, & Fung, 2014; Swanson, Moran, Bocian, Lussier, & Zheng, 2012).”

“…belajar matematika, khususnya visuospasial working memory (Passolunghi & Siegel, 2004; Andersson & Lyxell, 2007; Raghubar, Barnes, & Hecht, 2010; H. L. Swanson, 2015; Kroesbergen & van Dijk, 2015; Menon, 2016) Visual-spatial working memory berperan penting dalam keberhasilan belajar matematika.”