Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children who are not exposed to fluent sign language from birth generally fall behind their hearing peers in mathematics. These disparities are pervasive and emerge as young as 3 years old and continue throughout adulthood. While these limitations have been well-documented, there has been little attempt to empirically explain why one consequence of deafness seems to reflect difficulties with numbers and mathematics. The purpose of this review is to describe the math abilities of DHH children while providing an explanation as to why we see this disparity. In particular, we review evidence suggesting that limited/reduced language access, particularly in the first few months of life, may play a role in delaying the acquisition of early number concepts and its potential interference when solving math problems. We also consider the potential role executive functions, specifically working memory, play in mathematical learning and how lower working memory capacity seen in some DHH children may impact early numerical learning and task performance. Finally, we propose future research aimed to explain why deafness is often accompanied by difficulties in numerical cognition while informing our broader understanding of the relationship between language and numerical concepts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)

中文翻译：

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聋哑儿童的数学能力：语言在发展数字概念中的作用。

从出生起就没有接触流利手语的聋哑和重听 (DHH) 儿童通常在数学方面落后于听力正常的同龄人。这些差异是普遍存在的，并且在 3 岁时就出现并持续到整个成年期。虽然这些限制已得到充分证明，但几乎没有人试图从经验上解释为什么耳聋的一个后果似乎反映了数字和数学方面的困难。这篇评论的目的是描述 DHH 儿童的数学能力，同时解释为什么我们会看到这种差异。特别是，我们审查的证据表明，有限/减少的语言访问，特别是在生命的最初几个月，可能在延迟早期数字概念的获得及其在解决数学问题时的潜在干扰方面发挥作用。我们还考虑了执行功能的潜在作用，特别是工作记忆，在数学学习中的作用，以及在一些 DHH 儿童中看到的较低的工作记忆容量如何影响早期数字学习和任务表现。最后，我们提出了未来的研究，旨在解释为什么耳聋通常伴随着数字认知的困难，同时让我们更广泛地理解语言和数字概念之间的关系。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2021 APA，保留所有权利）我们提出了未来的研究，旨在解释为什么耳聋通常伴随着数字认知的困难，同时让我们更广泛地理解语言和数字概念之间的关系。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2021 APA，保留所有权利）我们提出了未来的研究，旨在解释为什么耳聋通常伴随着数字认知的困难，同时让我们更广泛地理解语言和数字概念之间的关系。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2021 APA，保留所有权利）