The impact of anxiety and life quality on the mathematical performance of dyscalculic middle school children

Abstract

Dyscalculia is a specific difficulty in learning mathematics that strongly influences activities of daily living that require skills such as counting and simple mathematical operations. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of negative emotions on mathematical performance in children with and without developmental dyscalculia using psychosocial tests, a quality of life test, an anxiety test and the Zareki-R mathematical performance test. This pilot study was realized on a sample of 20 children in the first year of secondary school (a group of 10 dyscalculic children and another group of 10 control children with an average age of 12.65 years). Descriptive statistics showed that dyscalculic children had low scores on all Zareki-R subtests. The Mann Whitney analysis revealed a significant difference between dyscalculic children and typically developing children on the Zareki-R subtests and the quality of life test, but no significance was found for the anxiety test. Analysis of the ANOVA by gender revealed no significant differences for the three tests, and the opposite for the ANOVA by age (F = 3.86, dll = 2, p ˂ 0.05). Using multiple linear regression, the subtests of physical quality of life, emotional quality of life and academic quality of life were significantly different for the two groups. In conclusion, the psychosocial quality of life and the high level of anxiety in dyscalculic children strongly influence their performance in mathematics.

Keywords: Anxiety; dyscalculia; mathematical performance; numerical cognition; quality of life.