Response inhibition is regulated primarily in the orbito-frontal and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, which have various neural network connections with the temporal and parietal lobes. Children who learn and use an abacus may subsequently use a “mental abacus” (i.e., they may imagine manipulating an abacus through visual representation, mainly in the parietal lobe). Additionally, abacus-trained children committed fewer commission errors, suggesting that they exhibited better response inhibition. As expected, given that the essential purpose of the abacus is to increase calculating ability, children trained to use an abacus performed better in arithmetic tasks than did controls. This study was designed to determine whether children trained to use an abacus differed from controls in terms of cognitive functioning. The Institutional Review Board of the Soonchunhyang University Bucheon Hospital approved this study (SCHBC-IRB-10-07), which was conducted in a manner adherent to the Declaration of Helsinki as revised in 1989. All participants and guardians provided informed consent. The study protocol was fully explained to the children and their legal guardians (parents or caregivers). Control subjects had no experience with an abacus. Individuals who are certified above the seventh level can perform multiplication as well as addition and subtraction. All diagnostic procedures were conducted by experienced psychologists and supervised by board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrists.Īll abacus-trained children were above the seventh level of abacus use, as certified by the International Abacus and Arithmetic Association. All children had intelligence quotients (IQs) above 80. Abacus classes near me manual#The sample, which was recruited via local advertising, consisted of elementary school students without psychiatric disorders, including mood, anxiety, psychotic, substance abuse, developmental, or behavioral disorders, as assessed using the Korean version of the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and the Schizophrenia-Present and Lifetime Version (K-SADS-PL), 14) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (DSM-IV). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the possible role of abacus training in comprehensive cognitive functions. This study aimed to investigate attention as well as comprehensive arithmetic abilities and memory in children who were trained to use an abacus. Hence, it is important to develop and encourage alternative modalities that may be helpful for improving attention in children and adolescents. 13) Thus, children with moderate or mild attentional or hyperactive-impulsive symptoms, and impaired academic performance, may not receive pharmacotherapy, and may be left entirely untreated. Despite the substantial impact of attention on academic achievement and children’s school adjustment, pharmacological treatment has been reserved for those ADHD children with severe and uncontrolled symptoms. 9, 10) Previous studies have indicated that attentional problems in such children are associated with poor academic achievement in areas such as reading, writing, and calculation, 11, 12) suggesting the existence of a common neurocognitive substrate for these cognitive domains. 8) Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), for example, is one of the most common neuro-psychiatric disorders in childhood, with an estimated prevalence of 5.3–9.5%. It has been established that attention is crucial in terms of academic achievement. Because attention may serve as the neurocognitive basis for better memory and intelligence, this may be another important cognitive domain influenced by abacus training. In terms of other cognitive functions, previous studies have focused primarily on memory 2, 5, 6) and general intelligence 7) other cognitive domains, such as attention, have not been evaluated in children and adolescents trained to use an abacus. The calculation requires pushing two beads in the lower deck of the second row upward (+20) and one bead in the lower deck of the first row downward (−1). Here, 56+19 is changed to 56+(20−1) to simplify the calculation. (B, C) The procedure for calculating 56+19 on the abacus. When counted, beads are moved toward the horizontal bar that separates the two decks. Each bead in the upper deck has a value of five, and each bead in the lower deck a value of one. The abacus calculator employs the decimal system from right to left each positional number is shown by the location of a bead. (A) The number one (1) as represented on an abacus. Introduction to the abacus, and the calculation procedure.
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