A needs analysis of gesture use by children with fetal alcohol syndrome during mathematics instruction

Abstract

The effects from prenatal alcohol exposure have been found to cause a range of congenital physical and cognitive abnormalities (Chasnoff, Wells, Telford, Schmidt, & Messer, 2010; Kable & Coles, 2004a). The neurological impairments associated with the effects from prenatal alcohol exposure often cause learning problems, most notably in mathematics (Kable & Coles, 2004a; Howell et al., 2006). Studies have indicated that when provided instructional interventions in mathematics, children affected by prenatal alcohol exposure made gains in learning. However, the studies did not provide specifics as to how children with FAS construct the understanding of a skill or concept (Kable, Coles, & Taddeo, 2007; Coles, Kable, & Taddeo, 2009). This study contributes to the literature by examining how children affected by prenatal alcohol exposure learn the concept of equivalence through their use of gestures in contrast to their learning outcomes. Previous studies have shown that children’s use of gestures while learning mathematics assist with the integration of verbal and visual stimuli, support concept formation, and facilitate flexible encoding of problems (Goldin-Meadow, Cook, & Mitchell, 2009; McNeil & Alibali, 2004). The results from this study indicated that children in the Alcohol Exposed group showed little to no learning after the intervention as compared to a control group matched by age and IQ. The study showed that children affected by prenatal alcohol exposure used fewer conceptual gestures while learning equivalence as compared to a control group. According to the gesture analysis, the children in the Alcohol Exposed group mentally represented the concept of equivalence as a series of isolated steps or procedures. The procedural representation was not transitioned into a flexible conceptual format and applied to solve different problem types accurately (McNeil & Alibali, 2004). Future studies need to investigate whether teaching children affected by prenatal alcohol exposure to gesture during mathematics instruction would be effective to increase concept formation, accurate encoding, and learning mathematics