Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion NYT opinion: No (rich) child left behind

Now, more than ever, the ability to acquire mathematical skills
ef
fi
ciently is critical for academic and professional success, yet little
is known about the behavioral and neural mechanisms that drive
some children to acquire these skills faster than others. Here we
investigate the behavioral and neural predictors of individual
differences in arithmetic skill acquisition in response to 8-wk of
one-to-one math tutoring. Twenty-four children in grade 3 (ages
8
–
9 y), a critical period for acquisition of basic mathematical skills,
underwent structural and resting-state functional MRI scans pretu-
toring. A signi
fi
cant shift in arithmetic problem-solving strategies
from counting to fact retrieval was observed with tutoring. Nota-
bly,the speedandaccuracyof arithmetic problemsolvingincreased
with tutoring, with some children improving signi
fi
cantly more
than others. Next, we examined whether pretutoring behavioral
and brain measures could predict individual differences in arithmetic
performance improvements with tutoring. No behavioral meas-
ures, including intelligence quotient, working memory, or mathe-
matical abilities, predicted performance improvements. In contrast,
pretutoring hippocampal volume predicted performance improve-
ments.Furthermore,pretutoringintrinsicfunctional connectivity of
the hippocampus with dorsolateral and ventrolateral prefrontal
cortices and the basal ganglia also predicted performance improve-
ments. Our
fi
ndings provide evidence that individual differences in
morphometry and connectivity of brain regions associated with
learning and memory, and not regions typically involved in arith-
metic processing, are strong predictors of responsiveness to math
tutoring in children. More generally, our study suggests that quan-
titative measures of brain structure and intrinsic brain organiza-
tion can provide a more sensitive marker of skill acquisition than
behavioral measures