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The relationship between anxiety and mathematics has often been investigated in the literature. Different forms of anxiety have been evaluated, with math anxiety (MA) and test anxiety (TA) consistently being associated with various aspects of mathematics. In this meta-analysis, we have evaluated the impact of these forms of anxiety, distinguishing between different types of mathematical tasks. In investigating this relationship, we have also included potential moderators, such as age, gender, working memory, type of task, and type of material. One hundred seventy-seven studies met the inclusion criteria, providing an overall sample of 906,311 participants. Results showed that both MA and TA had a significant impact on mathematics. Sociodemographic factors had modest moderating effects. Working memory (WM) also mediated the relationship between MA and TA with mathematics; however, this indirect effect was weak. Theoretical and educational implications, as well as future directions for research in this field, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We determined the relative importance of the so‐called approximate number system (ANS), symbolic number comparison (SNC) and verbal and spatial short‐term and working memory (WM) capacity for mathematics achievement in 1,254 Grade 2, 4 and 6 children. The large sample size assured high power and low false report probability and allowed us to determine effect sizes precisely. We used reading decoding as a control outcome measure to test whether findings were specific to mathematics. Bayesian analysis allowed us to provide support for both null and alternative hypotheses. We found very weak zero‐order correlations between ANS measures and math achievement. These correlations were not specific to mathematics, became non‐significant once intelligence was considered and ANS measures were not selected as predictors of math by regression models. In contrast, overall SNC accuracy and spatial WM measures were reliable and mostly specific predictors of math achievement. Verbal short‐term and WM and SNC reaction time were predictors of both reading and math achievement. We conclude that ANS tasks are not suitable as measures of math development in school‐age populations. In contrast, all other cognitive functions we studied are promising markers of mathematics development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working memory allows complex information to be remembered and manipulated over short periods of time. Correlations between working memory and mathematics achievement have been shown across the lifespan. However, only a few studies have examined the potentially distinct contributions of domain-specific visuospatial and verbal working memory resources in mental arithmetic computation. Here we aimed to fill this gap in a series of six experiments pairing addition and subtraction tasks with verbal and visuospatial working memory and interference tasks. In general, we found higher levels of interference between mental arithmetic and visuospatial working memory tasks than between mental arithmetic and verbal working memory tasks. Additionally, we found that interference that matched the working memory domain of the task (e.g., verbal task with verbal interference) lowered working memory performance more than mismatched interference (verbal task with visuospatial interference). Findings suggest that mental arithmetic relies on domain-specific working memory resources. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Introduction: Although many children encounter difficulties in arithmetic, the underlying cognitive and emotive factors are still not fully understood. This study examined verbal and visuospatial short-term memory (STM) and working memory (WM) performance in children with developmental dyscalculia (DD) and high mathematics anxiety (MA) compared with typically developing (TD) children. Method: Groups were matched on reading comprehension performance and IQ as well as on general anxiety. We aimed to test whether children with DD and MA were differently impaired in verbal and visuospatial STM and WM. Children were individually tested with four computerized tasks: two STM tasks (forward verbal and visuospatial recall) and two WM tasks (backward verbal and visuospatial recall). Results: Relative to children with TD, those with DD did not show impairments on the forward or backward verbal tasks, but showed specific impairments in the visuospatial WM task. In contrast, children with MA were particularly impaired in the verbal WM task. Conclusions: Knowing the underlying cognitive processes that differentiate why children with DD and MA fail in math could have both educational and clinical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between executive functions (inhibitory control and working memory) and metacognitive skills was investigated by applying correlational and regression analyses to data collected from two groups of children. To date, research in this area has lacked a theoretical model for considering these relationships; here we propose and test such a model. Our model hypothesises that if metacognitive skills are either monitoring or control processes, depending on the direction of information flow between the meta- and object-level, then each executive function should relate to one of these processes. Further, the contribution that executive functions and metacognitive skills make to educational achievement was examined. Results indicated that executive functions were more related to metacognitive skills in 5-year-olds than in 7-year-olds, and metacognitive skills were the most important predictors of educational achievement across both age groups. These data support an interpretation that the two skills are not identical to one another, and that executive functions could be 'necessary but not sufficient' antecedents to metacognitive skills, i.e. younger children's immature executive functions may limit their metacognitive skill use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined performance on transitive inference problems in children with developmental dyscalculia ( DD), typically developing controls matched on IQ, working memory and reading skills, and in children with outstanding mathematical abilities. Whereas mainstream approaches currently consider DD as a domain-specific deficit, we hypothesized that the development of mathematical skills is closely related to the development of logical abilities, a domain-general skill. In particular, we expected a close link between mathematical skills and the ability to reason independently of one's beliefs. Our results showed that this was indeed the case, with children with DD performing more poorly than controls, and high maths ability children showing outstanding skills in logical reasoning about belief-laden problems. Nevertheless, all groups performed poorly on structurally equivalent problems with belief-neutral content. This is in line with suggestions that abstract reasoning skills (i.e. the ability to reason about content without real-life referents) develops later than the ability to reason about belief-inconsistent fantasy content.A video abstract of this article can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90DWY3O4xx8 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]