Children with hearing problems often struggle with maths as well as other subjects.  In fact according to recent American research children with hearing difficulties lag farther behind their hearing classmates in maths than they do in reading. 

However this problem is little understood scientifically.  While studies suggest these children’s difficulties with reading are related to language skills, instructional methods and cognitive strategies, their problems with maths have not been as widely explored.

Thanks to £800,000 in funding from the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development in America, researchers in Scotland and the US will now spend four years investigating the problem.  Dr. Rebecca Bull of the University of Aberdeen will lead research at the Scottish end of the study while Dr. Marc Marschark, Honorary Professor at the Universities of Edinburgh and Aberdeen and Director of the Centre for Education Research Partnerships at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf will head up the US side.

The study will examine a number of areas including memory and attention skills, parental and child attitudes to maths and basic number skills. 

Researchers hope deaf and hard of hearing people aged between five and 25 will help in their study.  They initially plan to recruit children from the Aberdeen School for the Deaf plus other schools across the city and Aberdeenshire but say it may eventually be rolled out across Scotland. 

Dr Bull said: "These studies will provide the first look at how social-motivational, language, and cognitive abilities of deaf children influence their development of maths abilities.

“With this knowledge, we should be able to develop instructional strategies that take advantage of students' strengths while accommodating their needs

More information on the project can be found at http://www.rit.edu/ntid/cerp or by contacting the researchers at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it