AUTHOR=Amland Tonje , Lervåg Arne , Melby-Lervåg Monica 

TITLE=Comorbidity Between Math and Reading Problems: Is Phonological Processing a Mutual Factor?

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Human Neuroscience

VOLUME=14

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2020.577304

DOI=10.3389/fnhum.2020.577304

ISSN=1662-5161

ABSTRACT=<p>There is a relationship between reading and math skills, as well as comorbidity between reading and math disorders. A mutual foundation for this comorbidity could be that the quality of phonological representations is important for both early reading and arithmetic. In this study, we examine this hypothesis in a sample traced longitudinally from preschool to first grade (<italic>N</italic> = 259). The results show that phonological awareness does not explain development in arithmetic, but that there is an indirect effect between phoneme awareness in preschool and arithmetic in first grade <italic>via</italic> phoneme awareness in first grade. This effect is, however, weak and restricted to verbal arithmetic and not arithmetic fluency. This finding is only partly in line with other studies, and a reason could be that this study more strongly controls for confounders and previous skills than other studies.</p>