Contribution of finger gnosia and fine motor skills to early numerical and arithmetic abilities: New insights from 3D motion analyses.

Finger gnosia and fine motor skills (FMS) are assumed to play a key role in the development of arithmetic abilities, but their contribution to early numerical skills (i.e., enumeration skills and cardinality) has received little attention so far. The purpose of this study was to investigate the predictive value of finger gnosia and FMS to enumeration, cardinal, and arithmetical abilities and how these different dimensions contribute to arithmetic development. Overall, 3- to 5-year-old preschoolers were asked to perform tasks assessing enumeration, cardinality, and early arithmetic, as well as finger gnosia and FMS. FMS, involving either static or dynamic fine finger movement, were examined using 3D motion analyses. Using hierarchical regression, FMS were found to be the best predictor of both cardinality and early arithmetic skills, while finger gnosia did not predict the additional variance of arithmetic performance when FMS and age were considered in the regression model. Moreover, neither finger gnosia nor FMS were significant predictors of enumeration. Mediation analyses indicated that knowledge of the cardinal principle fully mediates the relationship between FMS and arithmetic skills, suggesting that FMS contribute to cardinal principle knowledge development, which would be a gateway to more complex arithmetical processing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Evidence of the impact of visuo-spatial processing on magnitude representation in 22q11.2 microdeletion syndrome.

The influence of visuo-spatial skills on numerical magnitude processing is the subject of a long-standing debate. As most of the numerical and non-numerical magnitude abilities underpinning mathematical development are visual by nature, they are often assessed in the visual modality, thereby confusing visuo-spatial and numerical processing. In order to assess the influence of visuo-spatial processing on numerical magnitude representation, we examined magnitude processing in patients with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS), a genetic condition characterized by a cognitive profile with a relative weakness in visuo-spatial abilities but with preserved verbal abilities. Twenty-seven participants with 22q11DS were compared to two control groups (one matched on verbal intelligence and the other on visuo-spatial abilities) on several magnitude comparison tasks each with different visuo-spatial processing requirements. Our results showed that participants with 22q11DS present a consistent pattern of impairment in magnitude comparison tasks requiring the processing of visuo-spatial dimensions: comparison of lengths and collections. In contrast, their performance did not differ from the control groups in a visual task with no spatial processing requirement (i.e. numerical comparison of flashed dot sequences) or in auditory tasks (i.e., duration comparison and numerical comparison of sound sequences). Finally, a specific deficit of enumeration processes was observed in the subitizing range. Taken together, these results show that deficits in magnitude can occur as a consequence of a visuo-spatial deficit. This highlights the influence of the nature of the tasks selected to assess magnitude representation.