| Mathematics learning disability,as an important sub-type of Learning disability,accounting for large percentage of students in the middle school.Especially,MLD has been investigated broadly in recent years,through Psychologists and Educators,including the standards of differential definition and diagnosis,the special manifestations,causes and types,and the intrinsic cognitive mechanism of mathematic disabilities and so on.Now there emerging a leading paradigm for carrying out research on MLD from the viewpoint of information processing,and more and more studies focused on discussing the cognitive processing mechanism of MLD.In recent years,there are more and more researches about mathematics learning disability(MLD)and working memory(WM).In the present study,based on Baddeley and Hitch's working memory's three-component model theory,we used the e-prime technology and through by the Flanker tasks and the spatial and verbal tasks of n-back to explore the intrinsic relationship between mathematics learning disability(MLD)of the junior schools students and three subsystems of working memory,the central executive?the visuo-spatial sketchpad and the phonological loop,in Tibetan junior school students,represented by the third junior school in Lhasa.The current paper contained four studies,which in turns were :1)to select the students with mathematics learning difficulties and the excellent students to measure the differences in the central executive,so as to systematically investigate the characteristics of the central executive system of students with the mathematics learning disability;2)to select the students with mathematics learning difficulties and the excellent students to measure the differences in the visuo-spatial sketchpad,so as to systematically investigate the characteristics of the visuo-spatial sketchpad system of students with the mathematics learning disability;3)to select the students with mathematics learning difficulties and the excellent students to measure the differences in the phonological loop,so as to systematically investigate the characteristics of the phonological loop system of students with the mathematics learning disability;4)to systematically investigate the developmental trend of the working memory ability in junior school students with the grade increasing and to investigated the relationship between mathematical ability development.We found that:(1)In the flanker task to test the central executive ability,the result of ACCs showed that there was a significant difference between MLD students and excellent students when the items were incongruent.At the same time,MLD students leave behind excellent students.In N-back tasks to test the visuo-spatial sketch pad,there were significant differences between MLD students and excellent students in all conditions except RTs in 1-back task.In N-back tasks to test the phonological loop,there was significant difference between MLD students and excellent students of ACCs only in 2-back task.It reveals that with high cognitive loads,MLD students leave behind excellent students in the visuo-spatial sketch pad and the phonological loop.(2)It was found that the main effect of grades on RT were all significant under consistant and conflict conditions,grade 9 was dramatically lower than Grade 7 and 8.No significance interaction effect were found between grades and groups.The main effect of grades was significant on ACC of conflict conditions,grade 9 was dramatically higher than grade 7 and 9 while the interaction effect between grades and groups were non-significant.On n-back visuo-spatial task,the main effect of grades was significant on RT of 1-back task,grade 9 was dramatically lower than grade 7 while the interaction effect between grades and groups were non-significant.No significance interaction effect was found between grades and groups on the ACC of 1-back task.On the RT of 2-back task,the main effect of grades was significant,grade 7 was dramatically higher than grade 8 and 9 but the interaction effect between grade and group was no significant.On the ACC of 2-back task,the main effect of grade was significant,grade 7 was dramatically lower than grade 8 and 9 while the interaction effect between grade and group was no significant.On the n-back phonological loop task,the main effect of grade was significant on the RT of 1-back,grade 8 and 9 were dramatically lower than grade 7 while the interaction effect between grade and group was no significant.Both the main effect of group on ACC and the interaction effect between grade and group was no significant.On 2-back task,the main effect of RT was significant,grade 7 was dramatically higher than grade 8 and 9 while the interaction effect between grades and groups was no significant.No significance differences were found in both the main effect of grade and the interaction effect between grade and group.(3)The ACCs in all tasks of MLD students had significant positive relations with their academic records.Conclusion:The MLD Students have certain WM deficits in the central executive?the visuo-spatial sketchpad and the phonological loop;The working memory ability of students with MLD is consistent with the development trend of the best group;The ACCs of the different tasks is effective predictor of mathematics learning. |
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