Project Kosmos
Kosmos - A study of the cognitive and socio-emotional development of children with learning disabilities
Reading, writing and arithmetic are basic competences that each child is supposed to acquire during primary school age. However, it appears that some children have significant difficulties in acquiring these skills, although they posses generally good or even above-average learning capabilities. This implies that their learning difficulties are closely delimited and applies only to the areas of reading, writing and arithmetic. In these areas the performance of such children, however, remains constantly and significantly below their performance levels in other areas. Although the children do exercises frequently and make an effort, their skills in reading, writing and/or arithmetic often hardly progress at all. These cases are qualified as so-called "specific developmental disorders of scholastic skills" (ICD 10, F81). In this category a distinction is made between a specific reading and spelling disorder (F81.1 and F81.2; also known as dyslexia) and a specific disorder of arithmetical skills (F81.3; also known as dyscalculia).
For all school subjects reading, writing and arithmetic are of great significance. In the everyday life of schools, the children concerned are therefore often confronted with situations in which their performance lags far behind that of their peers. Hence, many children see their performance as insufficient and interpret it as failure. This experience can lead to a diminished trust in one's own strengths and abilities, and the overall motivation to learn can diminish constantly. In unfavorable cases, this development can have additional negative effects, as the performance of children might suffer in areas in which they have their personal strengths. Also the relationship to teachers and parents can suffer, as the lack of enthusiasm to learn is partly interpreted as mere "laziness". In order to avoid such effects, we want to study these mechanisms in more detail in our project. From our findings supportive measures can be derived in order to support affected children in an optimal way.
Specific reading and spelling disorder (dyslexia)
The term specific reading and spelling disorder encompasses the various difficulties that can occur in the process of learning the written language. Some children have issues only in reading; others have issues only in writing. In general, however, impairments in reading and writing occur together.
Indications for a reading disorder are, for instance, frequent and prolonged hesitations during reading and a very slow reading pace. Furthermore, affected children often lose the line in a text or interchange words. They also often omit words while they read a text or add words that are not part of the written text. Characteristic issues of a spelling disorder are a high rate of mistakes both in unpracticed dictations and in the copying of texts. It is striking that the same word in a text is often misspelled in a number of different ways.
Overall, about 6 to 8% of all schoolchildren are affected by a reading and spelling disorder. Current research indicates that about twice as many boys suffer from Dyslexia than girls.
Specific disorder of arithmetical skills (dyscalculia)
About 5 to 8% of all children suffer from a so-called specific disorder of arithmetical skills. In contrast to the reading/spelling disorder, this disability is evenly distributed among boys and girls – both sexes are affected equally.
Children with a dyscalculia face huge problems when they have to handle numbers. Especially the acquisition of basic arithmetic skills (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) is difficult for them. In contrast, these difficulties become less noticeable in the case of higher arithmetic skills, which are, for instance, required for algebra or geometry.
It is characteristic that children with a disorder of arithmetical skills rely significantly longer on so-called counting tools (e.g., fingers and pens) than their peers. The affected children often lack the concept that numbers represent quantities which can be devided into subsets, i.e. children do not understand, for instance, that the number "5" consists of "2 and 3" or "1 and 4". Therefore, they perceive numbers as meaningless symbols.
Aims and research questions
In the framework of our research project, we follow the individual development of children with and without a specific developmental disorder of scholastic skills over a period of four years. In this time, we deal intensively with the personal strengths and weaknesses of the children. Our aim is to better understand the background and the consequences of learning difficulties through the analysis of the individual development of children.
Some core questions of our research project are:
- How does the school performance of children develop? What kind of strengths and weaknesses can be discerned?
- How do the affected children themselves perceive potential difficulties in reading, writing and/ or arithmetic?
- What effects do these difficulties have on their attitude towards school and their enthusiasm for learning?
- How do the difficulties affect the emotions and behavior of the children?
- How and why do children differ in areas such as school performance, learning enthusiasm and mood?
In a further step, these findings will be incorporated into the development of new support programs. We aim to create programs that are especially adjusted to the particularities and needs of individual children. It is our aim that especially those children who have not found the best possible support thus far will benefit from these programs.
Research design and research methods
Children suffering from dyslexia, dyscalculia or both and children without these disabilities take part in our research project. These groups of children are studied in a longitudinal design over a number of years. During this time, we follow the individual development of the children who take part. An element of the study is to survey the actual reading, writing and arithmetic capabilities regularly. In addition, we are interested in the attitudes of the children towards school, their enthusiasm for learning, their moods and behavior. In this context, the assessment of parents and teachers is of particular importance to us. We will therefore ask the most important attachment figures of the children to tell us about their observations and experiences.
Milestones for the current year
Last year we surveyed the performance of children in grade three with the help of standardized test procedures in the framework of a comprehensive screening of primary schools in and around Frankfurt. Based on our findings, groups of children were identified that show the ICD-10 criteria for a specific reading/writing and/or arithmetical disorder and those who do not show any problems. Data collections will take place at six-month intervals.
Scientific coordinator
Prof. Dr. Marcus Hasselhorn
Prof. Dr. Gerhard Büttner
Dr. Andju Sara Labuhn
Contact person
Collaborators
Anne Fischbach, Dipl. Psych.
Lena Guderjahn, Dipl. Psych.
Chantal Rietz, Dipl. Psych.
Johanna Schmid, Dipl. Psych.
Cooperation partner
Sozialpsychiatrisches Zentrum für Kinder und Jugendliche,
Dr. med. Fabian Härtling
Wolfsgangstr. 68, 60322 Frankfurt am Main
