Article

Children with cerebral palsy (CP) often have problems with arithmetic, but the
development of numerical abilities in these children has received only minor
attention. In comparison, detailed accounts have been written on the arithmetic
abilities of typically developing children, but a theoretical framework is still
lacking. A promising perspective is the embodied cognition framework, which
focuses on the influence of perception and action behaviours on cognition. We
searched the literature to find the available studies on the early numeracy
capacities of children with CP. We reviewed eight studies in which primary
school-aged children with CP with a verbal IQ of at least 70 participated. The
selected studies showed that these children are regularly delayed in performing
simple arithmetic operations compared with their typically developing peers.
However, owing to the limited number of studies no definite conclusions can be
drawn regarding the precursors and developmental trajectories of arithmetic
abilities in children with CP. We argue that the embodied cognition framework is
well suited to scrutinize the arithmetic abilities of children with CP and
provide future directions for research.
CI - (c) The Authors. Journal compilation (c) Mac Keith Press 2010.

Langue : ANGLAIS