You can count on your fingers: Finger-based intervention improves first-graders' arithmetic learning.

The question of whether finger use should be encouraged or discouraged in early mathematics instruction remains a topic of debate. Scientific evidence on this matter is scarce due to the limited number of systematic intervention studies. Accordingly, we conducted an intervention study in which first-graders (Mage = 6.48 years, SD = 0.35) completed a finger-based training (18 sessions of âˆ¼ 30 min each) over the course of the first school year. The training was integrated into standard mathematics instruction in schools and compared with business-as-usual curriculum teaching. At the end of first grade and in a follow-up test 9 months later in second grade, children who received the finger training (n = 119) outperformed the control group (n = 123) in written addition and subtraction. No group differences were observed for number line estimation tasks. These results suggest that finger-based numerical strategies can enhance arithmetic learning, supporting the idea of an embodied representation of numbers, and challenge the prevailing skepticism about finger use in primary mathematics education.

Life meaning and feelings of ineffectiveness as transdiagnostic factors in eating disorder and comorbid internalizing symptomatology - A combined undirected and causal network approach.

The field of eating disorders is facing problems ranging from a suboptimal classification system to low long-term success rates of treatments. There is evidence supporting a transdiagnostic approach to explain the development and maintenance of eating disorders. Meaning in life has been proposed as a promising key transdiagnostic factor that could potentially not only bridge between the different eating disorder subtypes but also explain frequent co-occurrence with symptoms of comorbid psychopathology, such as anxiety and depression. The present study used self-report data from 501 participants to construct networks of eating disorder and comorbid internalizing symptomatology, including factors related to meaning in life, i.e., presence of life meaning, perceived ineffectiveness, and satisfaction with basic psychological needs. In an undirected network model, it was found that ineffectiveness is a central node, also bridging between eating disorder and other psychological symptoms. A directed network model displayed evidence for a causal effect of presence of life meaning both on the core symptomatology of eating disorders and depressive symptoms via ineffectiveness. These results support the notion of meaning in life and feelings of ineffectiveness as transdiagnostic factors within eating disorder symptomatology in the general population.

Finger-Based Numerical Training Increases Sensorimotor Activation for Arithmetic in Children-An fNIRS Study.

Most children use their fingers when learning to count and calculate. These sensorimotor experiences were argued to underlie reported behavioral associations of finger gnosis and counting with mathematical skills. On the neural level, associations were assumed to originate from overlapping neural representations of fingers and numbers. This study explored whether finger-based training in children would lead to specific neural activation in the sensorimotor cortex, associated with finger movements, as well as the parietal cortex, associated with number processing, during mental arithmetic. Following finger-based training during the first year of school, trained children showed finger-related arithmetic effects accompanied by activation in the sensorimotor cortex potentially associated with implicit finger movements. This indicates embodied finger-based numerical representations after training. Results for differences in neural activation between trained children and a control group in the IPS were less conclusive. This study provides the first evidence for training-induced sensorimotor plasticity in brain development potentially driven by the explicit use of fingers for initial arithmetic, supporting an embodied perspective on the representation of numbers.