THE IMPACT OF MENTAL ARITHMETIC ON THE COGNITIVE AND MOTOR DEVELOPMENT OF PRESCHOOL CHILDREN
Keywords:
mental arithmetic, cognitive development, fine motor skills, visuospatial abilities, preschoolersAbstract
Mental arithmetic, based on the visual representation of the abacus and the motor-mental performance of arithmetic operations, is increasingly used as an educational and developmental approach in working with children. The aim of this paper was to examine the effects of a three-month mental arithmetic program on attention, working memory, visuospatial abilities, and fine motor skills in preschool children. The study included 50 children aged 4 to 6 years, divided into an experimental (n = 25) and a control group (n = 25), within a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design with parallel groups. At both points in time, tests of visual attention, working memory, visuospatial abilities and fine motor skills were applied. The results show that the experimental group made significantly greater progress in the domain of fine motor skills, especially in tasks that engage the non-dominant hand, as well as in visuospatial tracking and mental rotation of shapes. The effects on attention were moderate, but in favor of the experimental group, while the effects on working memory were limited and less pronounced compared to the other domains. The findings point to the potential of mental arithmetic as a complementary educational approach that encourages cognitive-motor integration in early childhood and open up space for further, methodologically rigorous research in this domain.
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