We are delighted to welcome researcher Jo Van Herwegen, Associate Professor at Kingston University, to our series in which researchers talk about the relevance of their work to the classroom. Welcome Jo!

What is the focus of your research?

My research focuses on development, especially language and mathematical development, in children with neurodevelopmental disorders such as Williams syndrome, Down syndrome, Autism Spectrum Disorders and Developmental Language Disorder. Understanding how development in neurodevelopmental disorders deviates from typical development doesn’t just allow me to develop intervention programmes for children with neurodevelopmental disorders, it also provides a better understanding of the building blocks of development as well as alternative pathways to success.

For example, typically developing children who are good at maths are also skilled in mathematical estimation (e.g., saying where there are more dots) and have been argued to have a better Approximate Number System (ANS) abilities. This suggests that the ANS is an important building block for mathematical development. However, it is also possible that better mathematical abilities allow the development of a better ANS. Studies with typically developing children often rely on correlational findings, but these studies cannot provide insight into causal pathways. Studies in neurodevelopmental disorders or populations who have difficulties in a particular area can therefore help further our understanding of what results in mathematical delay.

What led you to this area of research? 

 Mathematical abilities in people with Williams syndrome (WS) and Down syndrome (DS) have been found to be delayed. My research in infants with WS and DS showed that children with DS are proficient at approximate number estimation, while children with WS are not, suggesting that ANS abilities might be a good starting point to improve mathematical abilities in children with WS. While WS is a rare genetic disorder (1 in 20,000 live births) so it’s difficult to carry out large intervention studies, children who show specific mathematical difficulties or dyscalculia have also been argued to have weaker ANS abilities. Therefore, we recently developed some games for pre-schoolers, called PLUS games that target ANS abilities and we assessed whether playing these games for 10 minutes each day would improve ANS and mathematical abilities in pre-schoolers who were at risk for mathematical difficulties or dyscalculia.

Could you summarise your findings?

Our study showed that those children who played PLUS games had better ANS abilities in the long-term and improved as much on symbolic mathematical ability tasks as those children who played more traditional counting and number recognition games, called DIGIT games. The fact that improving ANS abilities through PLUS games improved symbolic knowledge, and that improving symbolic knowledge in DIGIT games improved ANS abilities, suggests a complex interaction between symbolic and non- symbolic abilities and mathematical improvements during the pre-school years. In addition, children who played the PLUS games were reported by teachers (who were blind to which condition the child belonged to) to show greater confidence when completing mathematical tasks. In the near future we would like to assess whether the PLUS games would also benefit mathematical abilities in children with WS.

 What do you think this means for teachers in the classroom?

Traditionally, pre-school instruction in the UK is informal and happens during play, with children who show mathematical difficulties receiving very little additional support. Our results show that both PLUS and DIGIT games improve pre-schoolers symbolic and non-symbolic abilities both short-term (immediately after the training) as well as six months later. Although we were not able to follow-up these children longitudinally to examine which children received a formal diagnosis of dyscalculia later on, around half of the children were no longer considered to be low performers six months after the start of the study. This suggests that playing the PLUS as well as DIGIT games on a regular basis for just five weeks during the pre-school years allows children who perform poorly on mathematical ability tasks to have an optimal start to schooling – and might prevent some children from receiving a formal diagnosis of dyscalculia later on.

If you could give one tip to teachers based on your work, what would it be?

When doing mathematics with young children we often focus on counting and we are quick to correct counting errors. This potentially can make even young children “afraid” of maths or think they are “bad” at maths. However, we know from research that estimation is a very important building block for children’s mathematical understanding and development. So next time when you ask a child “how many things are there”, allow them to guess and discuss whether the number they name is a large number or a small number and how it compares with the real number of objects in front of them.

The PLUS and DIGIT games and the full results from the study can be downloaded for free from here

CEN Associate, Professor Emily Farran, is the Developmental Psychology lead in the School of Psychology at the University of Surrey, and director of the Cognition, Genes and Developmental Variability lab (CoGDeV). One of her particular research interests is spatial cognition. In this blog, she introduces the concept and goes on to give heaps of useful pointers for parents and teachers on how to cultivate this foundational skill.

Spatial ability involves being aware of the location and dimensions of objects and their relationships to one another. It is core to everyday living (e.g., giving directions, or packing a suitcase). Research from my group and others has shown that it is also a strong predictor of a person’s mathematics and science abilities – those who perform well on spatial tasks show strong science and mathematical abilities. Despite the everyday importance of spatial ability, spatial thinking is given little emphasis within the National Curriculum, particularly when compared to the importance placed on literacy skills. However, there are plenty of ways in which parents and teachers can help their children to think spatially. Children who learn to think spatially will reap the benefits in their mathematics and science learning.

Spatial thinking in the classroom

Understanding science and mathematics depends heavily on being able to use, understand and co-ordinate models, read diagrams, rearrange formulae and interpret representations at different scales. Mathematics requires an understanding of shape, symmetry and numerical relationships, all of which require spatial skills, whilst the core problem solving and interpretation skills that are drawn upon in science require visualization, a key spatial skill.

Top tips for parents

Enlighten your child to the spatial aspects of the world by introducing spatial activities during your child’s normal day that will support and encourage their spatial thinking.

• Help them to order their teddies or toys by size and refer to the toys using size words such as small, medium and large. You can also use hand gestures to demonstrate the difference between small, medium and large. Children will enjoy imitating your gestures during the game. Why? Gesture uses space to supplement the information provided by words. This helps children to learn new spatial words.
• Books like “Zoom” and many of the “Twirlywoos” books are good for introducing spatial concepts and spatial language to children. Aim to use spatial words such as “in”, “on”, “out”, “between”, “smaller” and “bigger” when discussing the pictures in books with your child. Children love talking about the pictures in books – they will enjoy getting involved in the story telling. Why? Children who hear more spatial language as toddlers have stronger spatial skills when they start school. In turn, stronger spatial language associates with better STEM performance.
• Point out to your child that they might be able to work out how to fit a jig-saw piece by imagining it rotating in their head. This is harder than trial and error techniques, but children will be delighted with this new skill! Why? This encourages visualisation, which is key to success in science and maths.
• Spatial thinking does not always have to be formally taught. Block play and jigsaws, as well as computer games like Tetris, encourage the development of spatial ability. Why? These sorts of toys and games, bolster skills such as understanding part/whole relationships, symmetry and measurement.

Top tips for teachers

Because spatial thinking isn’t a recognised part of the curriculum, teachers need to be able to identify opportunities when they can integrate it into their teaching.

• Terms like “between”, “through” and “separate” are difficult concepts within the primary school years, and the learning of these words can be embedded within mathematics and science teaching. Why? Children with stronger spatial language demonstrate stronger science and maths performance.
• Equally, teachers can introduce more sophisticated terms such as “slope” or “parallel”, and support their acquisition with gesture to enable children to visualise the concept. Why? Gesture provides an additional representation of the concept. When teachers use gesture, children show a learning benefit over and above teaching using speech alone.
• Teachers can point out to children when visualisation would be useful (i.e., imagining a process in your head). For example, in physics, ask children to imagine what happens to the push and pull forces of magnets when a magnet is rotated. Why? Children with stronger visualisation skills have stronger science and maths performance.
• Diagrams are useful tools, but teachers often need to teach children how to use a diagram, for example, helping children to understand the differences in scale of the elements of a life-cycle diagram. When asked to compare diagrams, children need to be taught to view them spatially aligned – it is easier to observe the similarities and differences between two molecules or two quantities if they are aligned. Why? Diagrams use space to show a set of information simultaneously. This contrasts to words, which are sequential in nature. Diagrams can make an otherwise abstract concept more concrete, such as when number lines are used to depict negative numbers.
• Teachers can encourage children to create their own diagrams in the form of sketches. Why? Sketching helps children to actively learn a concept in a spatial manner.

You can read more about Emily and her colleagues’ work on spatial cognition in these papers – looking at the relevance of spatial skills for science and maths

You can keep up to date with her work via her lab group cogdevlab.weebly.com and by following her on twitter @EKFarran

If you would like to understand more about the basic principles of how the brain works, then why not have a peruse of our new CEN resource howthebrainworks.science

We are delighted to welcome Megan Dixon to our blog series in which teachers involved in research give us their take on educational neuroscience. Megan is Director of English at the Aspire Educational Trust and Director of Aspirer Research School. Welcome Megan.

What does educational neuroscience mean to you?

As teachers, I think we need to understand what happens in the brain when children learn; what accelerates and supports learning and what can hinder it. It is also interesting and helpful to understand the challenges pupils might face. Educational Neuroscience helps in a precise way, helping to explain what happens in the brain and support us to be more effective at teaching and learning. It is also helpful when we consider how to support children with special educational needs. Our multi academy trust is an inclusive community and we are passionate about supporting each and every child in our schools.

How do you keep up to date with the latest research?

I run an EEF research school, so I am immersed in the evidence – my particular interest is literacy acquisition and teaching and learning in the early years. Twitter makes it easier to find newly published studies, I often buy books (or borrow them from the library) and will email an author if I can’t get hold of a study I am interested in reading. I subscribe to a number of journals, too – although that can be expensive. I also ask, as part of my performance management, if I can attend a conference each year (rather than attending courses or other training). Last year I attended the Scientific Studies of Reading Conference in Brighton. Although I felt a little out of my depth as a teacher, rather than a researcher, I returned to work with a long list of interesting things to consider and develop with the teachers I support. I often attend teacher conferences, such as Research Ed and Research School conferences too.

Can you give some examples of how neuroscience understanding has helped you and your school?

It has helped with understanding why something works or is important and ensures we continue to make decisions for the right reasons – for example providing breakfast for children in school. This could be seen as an expensive thing to do, but the weight of the evidence, including the EEF Magic Breakfast trial and the neuroscience hit or myth describing the importance of good nutrition helped us understand the importance of maintaining this for our children.

It has also helped us develop principles and practices for teaching and learning that we use across all the schools in the trust. Our understanding of what aids learning, and what hinders – such as how we can support our pupils to learn to read, write and become competent mathematicians is underpinned by a nuanced understanding of the research literature. An example of this is how we ensure children develop their counting skills in the early years and Key Stage 1. The neuroscience suggests it is a complex and challenging task for young children to develop a conceptual, abstract understanding of a number. The child needs to be able to write the digit, recognise the digit, recognise (and count) visual patterns that represent that number – in a group, in a line, in a random collection and when each object has different colours or features. They need to understand where the number comes in relation to every other number and all the language associated with it – for example -bigger, smaller, greater than, less than, one more, one less. We systematically give the children opportunities to understand each aspect of each number, within a wide range of activities. To the untrained eye, it can look like we are simply repeating the same teaching, but without this deep conceptual level of understanding, from the very beginning, the children will find maths extremely difficult. We are always trying to learn more and be more effective in how we teach and adjusting our practices to support each and every child.

How do you get teachers and students involved?

As a Research School, and Teaching School we host a range of opportunities from newsletters to longer CPD programmes to short seminars and information twilights. We often ask researchers to come and share their work with us and we are actively involved in a wide number of research trials. Reading research, reflecting on it and sharing the learning outcomes have become an integral part of our school and trust community. We are always interested in new findings and working to translate them into practice. Over the past 5 years or so, my colleagues and I have worked to build a culture where research and evidence is integral to our practice – it is a habit now for us!

You can follow Megan and her colleagues on Twitter @AspirerTeaching  @AspirerRS

If you would like to understand more about the workings of the brain – what underpins the research mentioned above, do have a look at our new CEN resource How the brain works. We would love to hear what you think. Do let us know on Twitter @UoL_CEN

This week Professor Michael Thomas discussed the famous marshmallow experiment and its recent fall from grace.  A new replication study by Watts and colleagues controlling for various social factors such as home environment and socio-economic status has put into doubt the original claims about the importance of impulse control..  But what does this really mean?

Professor Thomas explored the real consequences of controlling for correlated variables in statistical analysis and how this can lead to simplistic conclusions about causality.  For more on this read Payne and Sheeran‘s interesting article!