DEVELOPMENT OF NUMERICAL COGNITION AMONG BRAZILIAN SCHOOL-AGED CHILDREN

Resumo

The Numerical Cognition is influenced by biological, cognitive, educational, and cultural factors and entails the following systems: Number Sense (NS) represents the innate ability to recognize, compare, add, and subtract small quantities, without the need of counting; Number Production (NP) which includes reading, writing and counting numbers or objects; Number Comprehension (NC), i.e., the understanding the nature of the numerical symbols and their number, and the calculation (CA). The aims of the present study were to: i) assess theoretical constructs (NS, NC, NP and CA) in children from public schools from 1st-to 6th-grades; and ii) investigate their relationship with schooling and working memory. The sample included 162 children, both genders, of 7-to 12-years-old that studied in public school from 1st-to 6th-grades, which participated in the normative study of Zareki-R (Battery of neuropsychological tests for number processing and calculation in children, Revised; von Aster & Dellatolas, 2006). Children of 1st and 2nd gradesdemonstrated an inferior global score in NC, NP and CA. There were no gender-related differences. The results indicated that the contribution of NS domain in Zareki-R performance is low in comparison to the other three domains, which are dependent on school-related arithmetic skills.