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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Autism
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1509137
This article is part of the Research Topic Empowering Early Career Researchers in Psychiatry: Advancing Autism Research View all articles

Early numerical skills and mathematical domains in autistic students in Primary School

Provisionally accepted
Álvaro Bejarano Martín Álvaro Bejarano Martín 1,2Roberto Casado Roberto Casado 3María Magán-Maganto María Magán-Maganto 1,2*Emiliano Díez Emiliano Díez 1,2Cristina Jenaro Cristina Jenaro 1,2Noelia Flores Noelia Flores 1,2Josetxu Orrantia Josetxu Orrantia 4Ricardo Canal-Bedia Ricardo Canal-Bedia 1,2
  • 1 University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
  • 2 Instituto Universitario de Integración en la Comunidad (INICO), Salamanca, Spain
  • 3 Grupo de Inteligencia Computacional Aplicada (GICAP), Departamento de Matemáticas y Computación, Escuela Politécnica Superior, Universidad de Burgos, Burgos, Spain
  • 4 Departamento de Psicología Evolutiva y de la Educación, Facultad de Educación, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    It is crucial to provide a quality educational response to the needs of autistic children across various mathematical domains. However, there is no consensus on which of the early skills have the greatest predictive effect in the short and long term within these domains. Therefore, this research aimed to a) compare early numerical skills and mathematics domains, and 2) analyze the predictive value of early numerical skills into mathematics domains. Forty-two children (twentyone autistic children and twenty-one non-autistic children) aged 6-12 years participated in the study. Three areas were evaluated through different tasks: 1) control tasks: reading, impulse control and manual speed, 2) early numerical skills: counting, verbal subitizing, magnitude comparison and estimation, and 3) mathematical domains: arithmetic calculation and arithmetic word problems. Significant differences were found in subitizing and estimation tasks. Both groups showed similar mathematical skills in arithmetic calculation and arithmetic word problems. For autistic students, several non-symbolic tasks predict performance in mathematical domains, whereas for non-autistic students, symbolic tasks were predictors. Although mathematics does not seem to be an area of concern for autistic children, future studies should explore early numerical and mathematical domains in children with cognitive support needs through longitudinal research.

    Keywords: autism spectrum condition, Numerical skills, Mathematical domains, cognitive, assessment

    Received: 10 Oct 2024; Accepted: 28 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Bejarano Martín, Casado, Magán-Maganto, Díez, Jenaro, Flores, Orrantia and Canal-Bedia. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: María Magán-Maganto, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain

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