Why do children born prematurely struggle more at maths? Researchers are on the case!
Researchers in the United Kingdom are set to start work on a study into the relationship between premature birth and mathematical aptitude later on. The team will analyse 160 schoolchildren from London and the Midlands to see whether there exists any clear link between when they were born and how well they are doing in maths. Of the children involved in the test, all aged between 8 and 10, half were born more than 8 weeks early and half were born at full term. A psychologist, who doesn't know which children were born when, will visit each child individually to assess their learning and maths skills. Over 10,000 babies are born more than 8 weeks early every year in the United Kingdom and many go on to develop learning disabilities. It has long been recognised that these children often have trouble with maths, which can hold back their progression at school and set them back throughout life. However, the nature and causes of children's difficulties with maths remain poorly understood, and the team hope to get to the root of why prematurely born children often struggle. They hope that their research will lead to a better understanding of these children's needs as well as to new teaching techniques to meet them. Project leader Dr Samantha Johnson from the University of Leicester says: 'We are carrying out this important study to help us understand what aspects of maths premature children find particularly difficult and what the underlying causes might be. Our work could eventually mean parents and teachers have better information about each child's particular needs and what sort of special educational support might suit them best. Longer term, we hope to use the knowledge we gain to find ways to improve the children's skills in maths. This is likely to have knock-on effects in other subjects.' The team will assess the children's attainment levels in different aspects of maths to pinpoint exactly where the problems lie. To do this they will identify specific areas of weakness in their understanding and abilities as well as their understanding of numbers and strategies used when carrying out addition and division problems, for example. The team also hope to identify differences in the children's general abilities, such as attention and memory skills, which could also be factors that contribute to the problems they have in maths. Dr Alexandra Dedman, Senior Research Evaluation Manager at children's charity Action Medical Research which is funding the study with a GBP 159,464 grant, comments: 'This research team hopes to boost our understanding of exactly what sort of problems children who were born very early can have with maths. They also hope to learn more about the root causes of the children's maths disabilities.' A previous study published in 2009 and also lead by Dr Samantha Johnson showed that extremely premature survivors remain at high risk of developing learning impairments and attaining poor academic results throughout childhood. This study looked at 219 children born extremely prematurely in 1995. Eleven years later, in 2006, these children's academic attainment levels and special educational needs were compared with 153 similar-aged children born after a normal-term pregnancy. The results showed that the extremely premature born children had significantly lower scores than their classmates in cognitive ability, reading and maths. As well as having serious implications for an individual child's development, the study also showed how this affects education and medical provision services as two thirds of these children also required full-time specialist education. This new research will hopefully move forward our knowledge and take into account any changes in learning support services provision for children that might have occurred since the last study.For more information, please visit:University of Leicester:http://www2.le.ac.uk/
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United Kingdom