Li Xueyan, Li Jiaxi, Zhao Sijia, Liao Yini, Zhu Liqi, Mou Yi
Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
Department of Psychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
Autism. 2024 Apr;28(4):866-880. doi: 10.1177/13623613231185408. Epub 2023 Jul 31.
The mathematical abilities of children with autism spectrum condition have been understudied. Magnitude representation (e.g. presenting the number of a collection of objects) is a fundamental numerical ability presented since early infancy and is correlated with children's later learning of formal mathematics. It remains unclear about whether children with autism spectrum condition differ from their peers without autism spectrum condition in precision of magnitude representations. This study compared preschool children with and without autism spectrum condition in their precision of magnitude representation with an approximate number comparison task, in which children compared two sets of dots without counting and chose the set with more dots. Children with autism spectrum condition exhibited the lower numerical comparison accuracy (i.e. the weaker magnitude representation) than their peers without autism spectrum condition. This difference existed even when multiple general cognitive abilities (working memory, inhibitory control, and nonverbal intelligence) and language abilities were statistically controlled. Moreover, the individual difference of the numerical comparison accuracy was larger in children with autism spectrum condition than without autism spectrum condition. These findings suggest that children with autism spectrum condition are at risk of weaker magnitude representation from an early age, emphasizing the need for specialized mathematics education or interventions to support their learning. In addition, the large variance in the precision of their magnitude representation suggests that individualized mathematics interventions are needed for children with autism spectrum condition.
自闭症谱系障碍儿童的数学能力一直未得到充分研究。数量表征（例如呈现一组物体的数量）是自婴儿早期就出现的一种基本数字能力，并且与儿童后期正式数学学习相关。目前尚不清楚自闭症谱系障碍儿童在数量表征的精确性方面是否与非自闭症谱系障碍的同龄人存在差异。本研究通过一项近似数字比较任务，比较了有和没有自闭症谱系障碍的学龄前儿童在数量表征精确性方面的表现，在该任务中，儿童不进行计数，而是比较两组点并选择点数更多的一组。自闭症谱系障碍儿童的数字比较准确性低于（即数量表征较弱）非自闭症谱系障碍的同龄人。即使在对多种一般认知能力（工作记忆、抑制控制和非语言智力）和语言能力进行统计学控制后，这种差异仍然存在。此外，自闭症谱系障碍儿童在数字比较准确性方面的个体差异比非自闭症谱系障碍儿童更大。这些发现表明，自闭症谱系障碍儿童从幼年起就存在数量表征较弱的风险，这强调了需要专门的数学教育或干预措施来支持他们的学习。此外，他们数量表征精确性的巨大差异表明，自闭症谱系障碍儿童需要个性化的数学干预。
