This volume focuses on two related questions that are central to both the psychology of mathematical thinking and learning and to the improvement of mathematics education: What is the nature of arithmetic expertise? How can instruction best promote it? Contributors from a variety of specialities, including cognitive, developmental, educational, and neurological psychology; mathematics education; and special education offer theoretical perspectives and much needed empirical evidence about these issues. As reported in this volume, both theory and research indicate that the nature of arithmetic expertise and how to best promote it are far more complex than conventional wisdom and many scholars, past and present, have suggested. The results of psychological, educational, and clinical studies using a wide range of arithmetic tasks and populations (including "normally" and atypically developing children, non-injured and brain-injured adults, and savants) all point to the same conclusion: The heart of arithmetic fluency, in general, and the flexible and creative use of strategies, in particular, is what is termed "adaptive expertise" (meaningful or conceptually based knowledge). The construction of adaptive expertise in mathematics is, for the first time, examined across various arithmetic topics and age groups. This book will be an invaluable resource for researchers and graduate students interested in mathematical cognition and learning (including mathematics educators, developmental and educational psychologists, and neuropsychologists), educators (including teachers, curriculum supervisors, and school administrators), and others interested in improving arithmetic instruction (including officials in national and local education departments, the media, and parents).

This volume focuses on two related questions that are central to both the psychology of mathematical thinking and learning and to the improvement of mathematics education: what is the nature of arithmetic expertise? and how can instruction best promote it?

Acquisition of Complex Arithmetic Skills and Higher-Order Mathematics Concepts focuses on typical and atypical learning of complex arithmetic skills and higher-order math concepts. As part of the series Mathematical Cognition and Learning, this volume covers recent advances in the understanding of children's developing competencies with whole-number arithmetic, fractions, and rational numbers. Each chapter covers these topics from multiple perspectives, including genetic disorders, cognition, instruction, and neural networks. - Covers innovative measures and recent methodological advances in mathematical thinking and learning - Contains contributions that improve instruction and education in these domains - Informs policy aimed at increasing the level of mathematical proficiency in the general public

This collection of papers from an international group of academics invites the reader to explore the complex set of phenomena surrounding mathematical skills acquisition and development in children.

First Published in 1986. This book is intended for those people who are interested in how mathematics is learned. It is intended especially for those who are interested in the mental processes involved in becoming mathematically competent and the mental processes that inhibit such competency from developing. The volume opens with an overview of the issue and then traces the relationships between conceptual and procedural knowledge in mathematics from preschool days through the years of formal schooling. Mathematics educators and cognitive psychologists from a variety of perspectives contribute theoretical arguments and empirical data to illuminate the nature of the relationships and, in tum, the nature of mathematics learning.