Longitudinal Research on the Links between Reasoning and Math

 描述(申请人提供)：在我们这个信息驱动的社会，数学能力是成功的关键，特别是在推动现代经济的STEM领域。然而，在人群中，在数学能力方面存在很大的差异，这种差异在正规学校的第一年就已经存在了。此外，幼儿园的数学能力是 对孩子以后的学业和职业成就有很强的预测力。许多干预措施都集中在执行功能(EFS)和早期数字知识上，以此作为提高学龄前儿童数学水平的途径，尽管它们的成功与否参差不齐。然而，推理能力是灵活解决问题的关键，与数学能力密切相关，尽管提高幼儿的推理能力可能是影响未来数学成绩的一条有希望的途径，但人们对推理能力的关注相对较少。NICHD努力开发更个性化和更有效的认知干预措施。与这个目标一致，这个应用程序的具体目标是识别支持推理和数学之间联系的认知技能和神经基础。目标1将测试特定认知技能组合在数学成绩增长中的因果作用。学龄前儿童将接受以推理能力或EFS为目标的基于游戏的干预。假设推理的发展将导致儿童识别数字大小之间的顺序关系的能力的提高，这将导致相对于聚焦于EF的干预在算术成绩上的更大改善。推理任务中的斜视测量将被用来调查儿童顺序推理的时间动力学，从而提供对干预促进的变化机制的洞察。目标2将描述6-19岁儿童的推理能力、数学成绩和大脑功能之间的联系。这一目标利用了先前存在的纵向数据集，该数据集调查了支持推理发展的神经和认知因素。NIMH旨在了解复杂行为的神经基础。假设是，数学成绩的增长将与推理发展所涉及的额顶脑网络内的功能活动和连接性的变化有关。总而言之，这些数据将告诉我们，哪些干预目标在提高孩子的数学成绩方面最有效，并将为我们提供支持数学成绩增长的神经变化的洞察。这种方法在多模式方法论上是创新的，因为它结合了发展心理学、认知心理学和认知神经科学的方法，以提高我们对促进数学能力发展的因素的理解。这项拟议的研究意义重大，因为理解推理和数学之间的联系对于发展对数学能力的新评估和促进数学成长的教育干预至关重要，这两者都是提高幼儿入学准备和学习成绩所必需的。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In our information-driven society, math ability is essential for success, particularly in the STEM fields that drive the modern economy. Within the population, however, there exist large variations with regard to math ability, and this variabilityis already present in the first year of formal schooling. Furthermore, math ability in kindergarten is a strong predictor of a child's later academic and professional achievement. Many interventions have focused on executive functions (EFs) and early number knowledge as routes to improve preschool-aged children's math proficiency, though they have been met with mixed success. However, reasoning ability, which is critical for flexible problem solving and correlates strongly with math ability, has received relatively little focus despite the possibility that improving reasoning ability in young children may be a promising route to impacting later math performance. The NICHD strives to develop more personalized and effective cognitive interventions. In line this with this goal, the specific objective of this application is to identiy the cognitive skills and neural substrates that support the link between reasoning and math. Aim 1 will test the causal role of specific cognitive skill sets in the growth of math achievement. Preschool-aged children will receive game- based interventions that target either reasoning ability or EFs. The hypothesis is that growth in reasoning will lead to improvements in children's ability to recognize ordinal relations between numerical magnitudes, which will result in greater improvements in arithmetic performance relative to the EF-focused intervention. Pupillometry metrics during a reasoning task will be used to investigate the temporal dynamics of children's ordinal reasoning, providing insight into the mechanisms of change promoted by the interventions. Aim 2 will characterize the links between reasoning ability, math achievement, and brain function in children aged 6-19 years. This aim takes advantage of a preexisting longitudinal dataset investigating the neural and cognitive factors that support reasoning development. The NIMH aims to understand the neural bases of complex behaviors. The hypothesis is that growth in math performance will be related to changes in functional activity and connectivity within the fronto-parietal brain networks implicated in reasoning development. Together, these data will tell us which targets of intervention are most effective at improving children's math performance and will provide insight into the neural changes that support growth in math performance. This approach is innovative it its multimodal methodology, because it combines methods from developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, and cognitive neuroscience in order to improve our understanding of the factors that promote growth in math ability. The proposed research is significant because understanding the connection between reasoning and math is critical for the development of novel assessments of math ability and educational interventions to promote growth in math, both of which are necessary to improve school readiness and academic performance in young children.