Comparison of the Cognitive Functions of Normal Students and Math Disorder in First Elementary School

Students with math disorders have problems with cognitive functions in addition to educational problems. Today, math skills are one of the basic skills that helps a person to succeed in many daily routines. Children usually learn basic math skills in the first years of primary school. Some of these children despite their natural intelligence have difficulty in acquiring these basic skills and are often identified as children with malfunction. According to some researches, roughly 6% of primary school students suffer from math disorders. Their mathematical score is constantly lower than 80 percent of their classmates while their IQs are often within the natural range. In order to provide educational methods and appropriate treatment processes for students with math disorders, some researchers want to recognize the defective cognitive function in these children. Probably, cultural–social and hereditary differences, as well as differences in the educational practices of Iran impact on the disorder in our country. Regarding the existing history, poor performance in general cognitive skills can be cause of motility disorders especially in elementary students. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate general cognitive functions in Iranian students with math disorder and compare them with their normal peers.

The research method was causal–comparative. The statistical population of this research was all students of the first elementary school of high population and governmental schools (about 1500–2000 students) in the Kerman city (Kerman province, Southeast of Iran). The primary sampling method was to select the two schools with the highest population among the elementary schools and then select the research sample by referring to them. Since this research was a comparative study, in order to determine the number of suitable samples in each group, a researcher–made mathematical test was performed for all students. Then, students who achieved score less than 80% of all students were separated, and video subjective tests and vocabulary of Wechsler adult intelligence test were applied to them. Among these students, those who showed normal and proportional scores to their age in these sub–tests were selected (40 of them were selected by simple random sampling method). These students were considered as the sample group of students with math disorders (with normal IQ) for the next steps. Other students who achieved score more than 50% of all students in the math test researcher, 40 students were randomly selected as normal students. In order to ensure the intelligence status of this group and to make it proportionate to the group of people with mental disorders in terms of intelligence, video arts subtasks and Wechsler vocabulary were also conducted on this group. The research instruments were Wexler's intelligence test for children and active acoustic memory tests, visual–spatial memory and long–term memory. Data were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, ANOVA and independent t–test.

There was a significant difference between the cognitive functions of students with math disorder and normal students in the first period of primary education at the level of (p<0.001). Cognitive functions were more common in math disorder students than in primary school normal students.

General cognitive skills are a prerequisite for math learning and authorities have to plan for these skills in order to prevent any learning problem in children. In addition, the results of this study show that general cognitive skills, especially active memory and information processing speed have a supporting role in the ability to learn numerical computing. Therefore, before the formal training of numerical calculus was begun. Student with the disorder should refer to the relevant specialists to undergo specific training.