Suppressing or restricting hand movements disrupts children's arithmetic performance, suggesting gestures play a functional role in calculation¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · associational r? · q2–q3
Currency · newest study 2023 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? In a within-subject randomized controlled trial, children were less efficient at solving problems in the hand interference condition than in the foot or control conditions. → Maëlle Neveu 2023 q2 i? Ability to suppress finger synkinetic movements during arithmetic is positively associated with arithmetic performance in deaf and typically developing children. → Maëlle Neveu 2023 (2)

Evidence¶

Maëlle Neveu 2023¶

Maëlle Neveu, Marie Geurten, Nancy Durieux, Laurence Rousselle. (2023). Finger Use and Arithmetic Skills in Children and Adolescents: a Scoping Review. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-023-09722-8

q3 · i? · causal · r?

Within-subject randomized controlled trial in deaf and TD children comparing hand, foot, and control interference conditions; children were "less efficient in the hand interference condition than in the other two conditions." The review describes the difference as medium to large without a numeric value.

"Crollen and Noël (2015) asked to their participants to solve problems in three different interference conditions (i.e., squeezing a ball with a hand, squeezing a ball with a foot and a control condition) and showed that children were less efficient in the hand interference condition than in the other two conditions, suggesting that gestures play a functional role in calculation skills."

Maëlle Neveu 2023 (2)¶

Maëlle Neveu, Marie Geurten, Nancy Durieux, Laurence Rousselle. (2023). Finger Use and Arithmetic Skills in Children and Adolescents: a Scoping Review. Educational Psychology Review. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-023-09722-8

q2 · i? · associational · r?

Correlational study (Kohen-Raz & Masalha, 1988) showing suppression of synkinetic finger movements is positively associated with arithmetic performance in deaf and TD children, with effect sizes described only as ranging from small to large.

"ability to suppress finger synkinetic movements during arithmetic task is positively associated with arithmetic performance both in deaf and typically developing children, with effect sizes ranging from small to large (Kohen-Raz & Masalha, 1988)."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Operations and Place Value — outcome: instruction changes it

Related Claims¶

• Training children to explicitly use finger strategies improves calculation performance in most studies, though results are not uniform — related
• Finger use is related to arithmetic performance in children, but the strength of this relation decreases significantly over development — related
• Gesturing during learning improves retention and reduces cognitive load — related
• Embodied collaborative construction can build shared geometric reasoning — related
• Gesturing while explaining problem solving reduces cognitive load — related