Over 2.4 million children in the public school system are diagnosed with a learning disability, including dyslexia and developmental dyscalculia. Previous research has shown that some teachers are unaware of the importance of working memory in a student’s academic and social realm and what working memory deficits may look like in the classroom. The relationship between learning disabilities, working memory, and behaviour problems were examined with tailored recommendations for improvement to provide insight for classroom educators. Three children from the United Kingdom, all of whom were 8 years old and presented with symptoms of learning disorders and low working memory profiles, were selected for case studies. Measures of working memory, behaviour, and academic attainment were included. Results from their standardised assessments indicated that each child had below average working memory, as well as low scores in arithmetic, writing and spelling skills. Each child also exhibited some type of behavioural problem, such as inattention or hyperactivity. Implications of the impact of their working memory profile on their academic outcomes and behaviour are discussed. Recommendations, such as Response to Intervention (RTI), are included for classroom educators to bridge the gap between research and practice.

In this case study of an aphasic patient with difficulties in numerical processing, the patient responded to a series of linguistic and numerical tasks designed to assess efficiency levels in processing various linguistic components. In addition, the patient completed a series of transcoding tasks that were directed at isolating whether the problems were associated primarily with arabic numerals or with other modalities (spoken or written). Data were analyzed using chi-square goodness-of-fit tests. Statistically significant differences were obtained between spoken verbal and written verbal outputs and between arabic and spoken verbal outputs. Based upon an analysis of errors, it was tentatively concluded that the disorders were associated with two types of dissociation operating together, one between spoken verbal and written verbal outputs at the syntactical level and the other between lexical and syntactical components in the spoken verbal output. A revised model is proposed to provide a tentative explanation for these observations.

The aim of this study was to evaluate if children with Developmental Dyscalculia (DD) exhibit a general deficit in magnitude representations or a specific deficit in the connection of symbolic representations with the corresponding analogous magnitudes. DD was diagnosed using a timed arithmetic task. The experimental magnitude comparison tasks were presented in non-symbolic and symbolic formats. DD and typically developing (TD) children showed similar numerical distance and size congruity effects. However, DD children performed significantly slower in the symbolic task. These results are consistent with the access deficit hypothesis, according to which DD children's deficits are caused by difficulties accessing magnitude information from numerical symbols rather than in processing numerosities per se.

Calculation and number-processing abilities were studied in 49 patients with chronic single vascular brain lesions by means of a standardized multitask assessment battery (EC301), as well as through other tasks, testing functions thought to be implicated in calculation such as language, visuo-perceptive abilities, verbal and spatial working memory, planning, and attention. The results show that (1) lesions involving parietal areas—particularly left parietal lesions—are prone to alter calculation processing. A more detailed analysis showed that patients with lesions involving left parietal areas were impaired in both digital (i.e., comprehension and production of numbers written in Arabic code) and oral (i.e., comprehension and production of numbers heard or expressed orally) processing while lesions involving right parietal areas lead to an impairment in digital processing only. However, linguistically related alphanumerical processing (i.e., comprehension and production of numbers written orthographically) was not influenced by parietal lesions. (2) Semantic representations (knowledge of the magnitude related to a given number) as well as rote arithmetical knowledge are also impaired following damage to parietal and particularly left parietal lesions, suggesting that these areas are also implicated in magnitude comparisons and in the retrieval of arithmetical facts. (3) Performance in calculation is highly correlated with language. (4) Moreover, we found a highly significant correlation between performances in oral calculation and verbal working memory, and between written-digit calculation and visuospatial working memory. Performances in regard to visuo-perceptive abilities, planning, and attention were less consistently correlated with calculation. These results stress the close correlation, but relative independence between calculation and language, as well as a dissociated sensitivity of oral and digital processing to brain lesions. (JINS, 2003, 9, 899–912.)

A new view of the functional role of the left anterior cortex in language use is proposed. The experimental record indicates that most human linguistic abilities are not localized in this region. In particular, most of syntax (long thought to be there) is not located in Broca's area and its vicinity (operculum, insula, and subjacent white matter). This cerebral region, implicated in Broca's aphasia, does have a role in syntactic processing, but a highly specific one: It is the neural home to receptive mechanisms involved in the computation of the relation between transformationally moved phrasal constituents and their extraction sites (in line with the Trace-Deletion Hypothesis). It is also involved in the construction of higher parts of the syntactic tree in speech production. By contrast, basic combinatorial capacities necessary for language processing – for example, structure-building operations, lexical insertion – are not supported by the neural tissue of this cerebral region, nor is lexical or combinatorial semantics. The dense body of empirical evidence supporting this restrictive view comes mainly from several angles on lesion studies of syntax in agrammatic Broca's aphasia. Five empirical arguments are presented: experiments in sentence comprehension, cross-linguistic considerations (where aphasia findings from several language types are pooled and scrutinized comparatively), grammaticality and plausibility judgments, real-time processing of complex sentences, and rehabilitation. Also discussed are recent results from functional neuroimaging and from structured observations on speech production of Broca's aphasics. Syntactic abilities are nonetheless distinct from other cognitive skills and are represented entirely and exclusively in the left cerebral hemisphere. Although more widespread in the left hemisphere than previously thought, they are clearly distinct from other human combinatorial and intellectual abilities. The neurological record (based on functional imaging, split-brain and right-hemisphere-damaged patients, as well as patients suffering from a breakdown of mathematical skills) indicates that language is a distinct, modularly organized neurological entity. Combinatorial aspects of the language faculty reside in the human left cerebral hemisphere, but only the transformational component (or algorithms that implement it in use) is located in and around Broca's area.

Arithmetical reasoning ability has been investigated in a group study of patients with unilateral cerebral lesions. Two series of 38 and 39 patients, who had suffered unilateral cerebral lesions of the right and left cerebral hemisphere, respectively, were investigated. They completed a neuropsychological battery that included a test of computation (Graded Difficulty Arithmetic, GDA; Jackson & Warrington, 1986), and a new test of numerical series completion (Arithmetical Reasoning Test, ART). Whereas the left-hemisphere lesion group were markedly more impaired on the GDA compared to both the right-hemisphere lesion group and a standardization sample, both lesion groups were equally severely impaired on the ART. It is suggested that the abstraction of numerical relations, which is essential to numerical series completion, relies on the integrity of the right hemisphere. A global model of arithmetic processing that incorporates these findings is proposed. (JINS, 1997, 3, 260–268.)