The effectiveness of Korean number naming on insight into numbers in Dutch students with mild intellectual disabilities

Background
Children from Asian countries score higher on early years’ arithmetic tests than children from Europe or the United States of America. An explanation for these differences may be the way numbers are named. A clear ten-structure like in the Korean language method leads to a better insight into numbers and arithmetic skills. This assumption forms the basis of the current study.

Method
Examined is whether an intervention with number naming in the Korean way influences number awareness of students with mild intellectual disabilities (N = 70; mean age: 9;0 years).

Results
The results indicate a positive effect of this alternative method of number naming on the insight into numbers up to 20. However, the effect did not generalize to insight into numbers 21-100.

Conclusions
The Korean method of number naming seems to be a promising way to teach students with mild intellectual disabilities insight into numbers.