A team from University College London’s Child Development and Learning Difficulties Lab are looking for families to take part in a home-based research project.
Good number skills are important for everyday life.
Many children with Down syndrome have delayed and low mathematical abilities which may impact on levels of independence in the future, such as handling money, catching public transport and shopping.
There are currently few parental interventions that aim to support mathematical development in children with Down syndrome.
We are interested in the development of effective evidenced based maths interventions to support the improvement of maths abilities in children with Down syndrome. This is the first study to examine the impact of two parent-led mathematical programmes for children with Down syndrome.
We are looking for 20 children with Down syndrome between 5 to 11 years old from across the UK to take part. This study is made up of four main phases which will take approximating 16 weeks to complete.
Each family will receive a box of materials to use over the programmes, for the games as well-as motivators and incentives (e.g., cards, stickers, Lego, castanets, beads, easy visual instruction cards for each game).
Children will also need to take part in face-to-face and online assessments.
If you would like to take part or would like more information, please contact Unta Taiwo on unta.taiwo.14@ucl.ac.uk.
About the research team
Unta Taiwo is a third year PhD student with 18 years’ experience as a teacher in education. Her interests are in child development and measuring the success of carefully designed interventions. For her PhD she is co-designing a maths intervention to improve learning outcomes for children with Down syndrome and children with Williams syndrome.
Stella Xu is a first year PhD student. She has been volunteering with children with special educational needs since 2015. Her research focuses on the development of mathematical abilities in individuals with Down syndrome and Williams syndrome.
Dr Jo Van Herwegen is the director of the Child Development and Learning Difficulties lab at University College London. Jo’s research focuses on improving educational outcomes and wellbeing for typically developing children and those with Special Educational Needs using evidence from cognitive and developmental psychology as well as neuroscience.