Math education dealing with mathematical learning disabilities: a literature review.
Résumé
In recent times, research interest in mathematical learning disabilities (MLD) has
increased around the globe, but their definition and diagnosis does not enjoy a clear
scientific consensus (Lewis & Fisher, 2016). Research regarding MLD is carried out
in different fields, with various theoretical backgrounds and aims (Lewis & Fisher,
2016): cognitive sciences, neuroscience, psychology, mathematics education. We
conducted a systematic literature review of the last 10 years of PME and CERME
proceedings. We followed the main lines of the methodology used by Joklitschke, Rott,
and Schindler (2018) for our study which is structured in 3 main steps: the
identification of keywords about MLD, the selection of the founded articles following
these keywords and a synthesis of the main features of these papers. Our research
question is: How has the field of mathematics education dealt with MLD these last 10
years? According to our literature review, the keywords that identify MLD in math
education are: disab*, dyscalcul*, disord*, difficult*, inclus*. We used them to search
articles for our review by focusing on titles, abstracts and keywords in proceedings of
PME and CERME (2009-2018). We obtained 348 articles. After reading the articles,
we retained 13 pertinent papers for our review about MLD. Our review shows that
there is no consensus about the definition of MLD in mathematics education. In fact,
the 13 articles can be subdivided into three classes according to the specificities of the
participants of the experiments evoked in the articles: with diagnosis of MLD (often
referred as dyscalculia, 4 articles), with learning disabilities with or without
comorbidity (8 articles), with specific difficulties in learning mathematics but without
diagnosis of MLD (6 articles). To conclude, it would be interesting to have a better
understanding of research questions, definitions, theoretical frameworks and methods
in research about MLD in math education