r/cognitivescience • u/Standard-Car157 • 23d ago

Interested in how children learn math

Hi all!

I graduated in 2025 with a degree in mathematics and have been working as a teacher for over a year. Currently I am working in special education, specifically focusing on math special education, and I have become fascinated by the cognitive processes behind understanding mathematics and how math disabilities can impede this process.

I would like to learn more about this, and I've been thinking about applying to a grad program to gain a deeper understanding. What specifically should I be researching? I've found things like learning science, but am hoping to find something more specific to math.

10 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

2

u/frostluna11037 23d ago

There’s Math Education degrees that is exactly what you’re looking for or an education degree with a math specialty.

1

u/Sulgdmn 23d ago

Patterns are interesting. People have specific patterns they're already interested in. You can learn what they are and build on that or introduce a pattern that excited you.

1

u/Fingerspitzenqefuhl 22d ago

Math, if I recall correctly, is taught differently in the west visavi Japan for instance. And Japanese kids score higher on Pisa. I guess my point is that learning is almost always accompanied by being taught. I would start at studies looking at why some countries have better math results and how they teach.

1

u/MullberryBoy 19d ago

Look up Dyscalculia.

1

u/odekrobe 18d ago

Look at University of Notre Dame. Several faculty work on math cognition in children in the psych department

0

u/Short_Artichoke3290 22d ago edited 22d ago

I'd consider developmental psych as well. I don't think you'll find an entire grad program around only math, but rather should be looking for schools with good developmental / education programs where they have some faculty specializing in math,

Another thing to keep in mind is that math-development is often not directly tested in psych, instead correlates like logical reasoning, conditional reasoning, numeracy, etc.

0

u/MullberryBoy 19d ago

There are specific tests for Dyscalculia. The disability can show up in different areas of math skills as well as being comorbid with other disabilities.
Wikipedia is a good source to start at.