Learning mathematics is crucial for our everyday lives. A poor understanding of maths can cause students to struggle in many other subjects. But also, it could limit their further study options as well as their employability when they come to think about career options.
Unfortunately, there is a group of children that show severe impairments from the very beginning of school and which persist throughout their life. This group is known as children with mathematical learning disabilities, MLD. Children with MLD must be diagnosed as early as possible in order to receive the educational support that they need.
However, diagnosing MLD is difficult due to the multiple domain-general skills and domain-specific skills that underline MLD. Very few tools include both domain skills to diagnose optimally. Particularly, there is not a tool with these characteristics for Spanish-speaking children.
We designed Multimedia Battery for assessment of cognitive and basic skills in maths, BM-PROMA, in order to provide a computerized test that will make it possible to diagnose children with MLD, considering a complete cognitive profile. BM-PROMA includes tasks that assess both domain-specific and domain-general skills. Eight tasks, assess domain specific-skills.
Missing number, two-digit number comparison, reading numbers, place value, number line 0 to 100 and 0 to 1, 000, arithmetic fact retrieval, and arithmetic principles. And four tasks are related to domain-general skills. Counting span, rapid automatized naming, letter, visuospatial working memory, and phoneme deletion.
These tasks are going to be presented as follows. Missing number. In this game, you have to say aloud the name of the missing number.
Two, four, six, eight and 10. So the missing number is 10. Now, try it on your own.Ten.
Two-digit number comparison. In this game, look carefully at these two numbers. You must choose the biggest number.
To do so, you must compare the two numbers and say aloud the name of the biggest one. Look at these two numbers. 37 is bigger than 21, so I will say 37.
Try to complete the task as quickly as possible without getting it wrong. Now, try it on your own.37. Reading numbers.
In this game, you have to name aloud the numbers that appear on the screen. Look at this number. Here you have to say 12, because that is the name of the number on the screen.
Try to complete the task as quickly as possible without getting it wrong. Now, try it on your own.12. Place value.
In this game, we have a number and four pictures. You have to click on the picture that represents the number correctly. I will choose the first one, because the bar equals a 10 and the squares equal five units.
Now, try it on your own. Number line, 0 to 100 and 0 to 1, 000. In this game, you have to put the number where you think it goes.
Look at this line. It starts at zero and ends at 100. You have to put number 50 here.
To do so, you have to press on the red line under the number and drag it to the correct place. Do you know why I dropped the number here? It is in the middle because 50 is half 100.
Now, try to do it on your own. Arithmetic fact retrieval. In this game, you have to solve the computations in your head.
In the first one, the correct answer is three. Solve the task in silence, and tell me the answer aloud. Try to solve the task as quickly as possible without getting it wrong.
Now, try it on your own.Three. Arithmetic principles. In this game, you have to say aloud the result of the second operation.
Look carefully at both computations. The first one has already been solved, but the second one still needs to be solved. 5 5 10, then 5 6 11.
When I tell you to start, solve the task in silence and then say the answer aloud. Try to solve the task as quickly as possible without getting it wrong. Now, try it on your own.11.
Counting span. In this game, we have some cards. Each card has blue and yellow dots.
You have to count and remember the number of yellow dots on each card. First, we are going to count how many yellow dots there are on the first card. There are two yellow dots on the card.
Then we will count all the yellow dots on the second card. There are eight yellow dots on the card. Now, as there were two yellow dots on the first card and eight yellow dots on the second card, you have to say aloud the numbers two and eight.
Now, try it on your own.Two.Eight. Two, eight. Rapid automatized naming, letters.
In this game, you have to name the letters that appear on the screen. It does not matter if they are repeated. So we have to say A, C, V, N, A, N, C, C, V, V.Try to name the letters as quickly as possible from left to right and from top to bottom.
Now, try it on your own. A, C, V, C, A, N, V.C, V, V.Visuospatial working memory. In this game, you will see that some of the squares light up.
You have to remember which squares lit up and the order in which they did so. Then you have to press the squares in the same order to repeat the sequence. Now, watch carefully and press the squares in the same order.
Phoneme deletion. In this game, you have to remove the first sound of each word. If you hear the word tarde, you have to remove the sound, tuh.
So you will say arde. Now, try it on your own.Late.Ate. Results indicated alpha of above 0.7 for the majority of the measures at each grade, suggesting good to excellent internal consistency for most of the tasks.
The fit indices suggested an adequate fit of the five-factor model proposed for the data which were invariant across grades. Results from receiver-operating characteristic analyses were promising, with the results showing AUCs ranging from 0.72 to 0.92 across almost all factors in grades, indicating acceptable to excellent discrimination. BM-PROMA is one of the few computerized tools that integrates a multidimensional protocol to diagnose primary school children with MLD and the first tool standardized for Spanish-speaking children.
Here, it has been proven that BM-PROMA is a well-validated and reliable instrument. Its use provides a complete cognitive profile of the child, which is relevant not only for diagnosis, but also for individualized instructional planning. Finally, it is important to note that the multimedia context is highly motivating for the children and, at the same time, makes the assessment procedure easier.
