The Symbols Cognition Of Chinese Children With Learning Disability:Behavior And ERP Study

Purpose:(1)One aim of the study was to investigate the status of frontal executive function in children with learning disabilities by trail making test (TMT) and Wisconsin card sorting test (WCST).(2)The other aim of the study was to analyze the characteristics of short-term memory and working memory in digit and character in children with learning disabilities.(3)The last aim of the study was to understand Chinese characters and digital neural mechanisms of cognitive processes in children with learning disabilities, as well as the core disorder of dyslexia and cognitive obstacles of dyscalculia.Methods:Combined with the teacher evaluation and student achievement scale, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fourth Edition (DSM-IV-TR), China's revised Wechsler intelligence test (WISC-R) and primary multiple achievement tests (MATs) were be adopted. The experimental group had22dyslexics and21dyscalculia were selected from467students in grades4to6, and21normal children were built in control group. All of students were be allowed by their parents or Legal guardian's written consent, and to study the features of symbol cognitive between learning disabilities and normal children by using trail making test, Wisconsin card sorting test, short-term memory information extraction experiments and Chinese/digital cognition in event-related potential technique. Results:(1)With the difficulty of task was increased, the reaction time of children with learning disability was also increased significantly in TMT. The interference index of children with learning disability was significantly less than the normal group (F(2,49)=3.234,p=0.046).(2)In WCST, the score of children with learning disability was significantly less than the normal group in response of correct ratio(F(2,49)=5.018, p=0.010) and conceptual level(F(2,49;=3.847,p=0.027), and significantly more than the normal group in response of errors(F(2,49)=3.674,p=0.031) and response of non-preservative error ratio(F(2,49=3.078,p=0.049).(3)With task difficulty increasing, compared with normal children, the recognition accuracy of children with learning disability was decreased,(condition1:F(2,47)=3.63, p<0.05; Condition2:F(2,47)=3.79, p<0.05), and the reaction-time was added In digit task (Condition1:F(2,47).93, p <0.05; Condition2:F(2,47)=9.04, p<0.05). In character task, the recognition accuracy of children with learning disability less than the normal group (Condition1:F (2,47)=3.50, p<0.05; Condition2:F(2,47)=4.41, p<0.05), while the reaction time difference was not significant.(4)In the cognitive processing of Chinese characters or digit, the children with learning disability were significantly differences with the normal group in occipital(P1amplitude decreases),occipito-temporal(N170/VPP amplitude increases) and frontal(LPP amplitude decreases). The learning disability group had no significant difference with normal group in early and late component of the latency components. Conclusions:(1)According to the result of TMT and WCST, the children with learning disabilities were significantly less than normal children in the attention,hand-eye coordination,set transfer and visual-spatial cognition and so on. It means that the children with learning disabilities had the executive dysfunction of frontal lobes or the abnormal phenomena of the level of processing;(2) compared with normal children, the level of digital short-term memory/working memory in children with learning disabilities happened decreases obviously with the task difficulty increases, while the status of character memory had difference. Therefore, the digit and character of memory way in children with learning disabilities were significant difference in normal children;(3) No only Chinese cognitive but also digit processing, the brain area of children with learning disabilities happened abnormal phenomenon obviously include occipital lobes, occipito-temporal area and frontal lobes. The executive dysfunction of the frontal lobes in children with learning disabilities had shortage of self-activation as well as the influence of the other brain question;(4)The cognitive deficits of Chinese dyslexic children was mainly phonological processing disorders, and the dysfunction of Visual-Arabic encoding module was major problems of Chinese dyscalculia children.