The Relationship Between Reading And Mathematical Ability And Their Common Cognitive Basis

Children’s reading and mathematical performance can significantly predict their academic achievement,physical and mental health,and social and economic status in adolescence and even adulthood.Therefore,the relationship between children’s reading and mathematical ability and their cognitive basis have been widely concerned by researchers.However,most previous studies have explored the relationship between children’s reading and mathematics under the western background and the influence of a certain cognitive ability on reading and mathematics.Few studies have focused on the relationship between reading and mathematics and the cognitive basis of Chinese children.In addition,most of the previous studies took general children as the research object,and there was a lack of discussion on the relationship between group reading and mathematics for children with special learning difficulties.Therefore,this study focuses on the relationship between Chinese children’s reading and mathematics and their cognitive basis.It systematically and comprehensively explores the role of various cognitive abilities in children’s reading and mathematics abilities by taking ordinary and special children as research objects.The first study focused on the relationship between reading and mathematics ability and the common cognitive basis of general children,including two sub-studies.Study1 a looked at the relationship between reading and math ability by following the average child for a year.The results of cross-lag analysis showed that the reading and mathematics abilities of children were closely correlated and predicted each other,which was consistent with the hypothesis of reciprocity theory,suggesting that children’s reading and mathematics abilities promoted each other in development.In addition,the results of study 1a found that the correlation coefficient in the first year was significantly stronger than that in the second year,indicating that the correlation strength between children’s reading and mathematics would weaken over time.Study1 b examined the common cognitive basis of reading and mathematics ability of general children and required them to complete reading and mathematics ability tests as well as three cognitive tests of general ability,language-specific domain,and math-specific domain.General ability tests include working memory,executive function and other aspects.The results of regression analysis showed that there were no common predictors of reading and math ability.The second study explored the relationship between reading and mathematics ability and the common cognitive basis of exceptional children,including two substudies.Study 2a explores the common cognitive basis of reading and math difficulties in exceptional children by exploring common deficits in reading and math difficulties and the causes of comorbidities.The results showed that the children with reading difficulties and mathematics difficulties had common cognitive deficits,including working memory of speech,selective attention,executive function,phonological awareness in language and number sense in mathematics.In addition,this paper also discusses the causes of dual-difficulty children in reading and mathematics.The results show that dual-difficulty children are caused by the defects in both general and special domain abilities of these children,which is the result of the interaction of various abilities,consistent with the hypothesis of multi-factor model.Study 2b used another analytical approach to explore the common deficits of dyslexia and dyslexia alone and their respective subtypes.In terms of common defects,the results were basically consistent with those in study 2a,indicating the stability of this result.In addition,the results of the subtype study showed that the children with reading and math difficulties showed different group heterogeneity and had different subtypes.Specifically,dyslexia children were divided into general disability group,minor disability group and total disability group.Children with mathematical difficulties can be divided into inferenceattention deficit group,generalization deficit group,general deep deficit group and specific language deficit group.This suggests that both subtypes of difficult children contain subtypes of general disability.In general,this study found that the reading ability and mathematical ability of average children in the Chinese context are closely related,and can promote each other in their development,which is consistent with the reciprocity hypothesis.In addition,it is found that children with learning difficulties share a common cognitive basis in reading and mathematics,including general abilities in working memory,attention,and executive function,as well as special abilities in language and mathematics,indicating a close correlation between reading and mathematics abilities in children with learning difficulties.However,this study did not find the common cognitive basis of reading and mathematics ability of ordinary children,which may be caused by the strong homogeneity within the subject group and the insufficient number of subjects.In conclusion,this study explores the relationship between reading and mathematics and the common cognitive basis of the two types of children,which has a certain enlightening significance for understanding the relationship between reading and mathematics in children.