Short-Term and Long-Term Effects of COVID-19 and Remote Learning: Experiences of Parents Supporting Children with Mathematical Learning Disabilities in Israel

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The topic of the effect of the covid pandemic on the mathematical learning of primary grade students with mathematical learning disabilities is an important one and one potentially of interest to researchers, teachers and students alike.

The manuscript puts forward two different studies: a survey of parents’ perceptions of their children’s mathematical needs, and a survey of teachers’ pedagogical practices regarding digital technologies in teaching math. Although these are both potentially interesting, at present these two studies are not well connected within the article. The presentation and discussion of the first study are the most fully developed, so my suggestion would be to focus on that and perhaps develop a separate article for the second study.

Although the authors go to great lengths to describe the testing methods that which were used to identify certain students as being “MD” it would be very helpful to include a more developed literature review of research related to mathematical learning disabilities and mathematical difficulties. In particular, I noticed how the use of the acronym “MD” in this paper fluctuates between “mathematical learning disabilities” and “mathematical difficulties” (which are not the same thing) terms that are never defined in the paper. It would also be interesting to know what’s in the literature related to home-support in non-covid times by parents of grade 1 and 2 students with either mathematics learning disabilities or mathematics difficulties, as by necessity these parents are often more involved in supporting their children’s learning.

Anecdotally, I’ve heard from teachers and parents alike that teaching young children remotely during the pandemic was “a gong show” and at best online classes helped to keep some sense of social connection between the children and their teacher/school. Thus your hypothesis and your findings about the parents’ perceptions are not a surprise, nor is it a surprise that the TD group outperformed the MD group after schools returned to more regular practices. What I am not clear about is why you feel the parent’s perceptions are important – do their comments provide suggestions about how online teaching might be improved for students in this population? What I am also not clear about (and perhaps I missed this) is what the difference is between the performance of students in your study and the performance of students prior to pandemic who did not have this kind of interruption in their learning.

In conclusion, I recommend that the manuscript focus on the first study, that the literature review be more developed about mathematics learning disabilities (or mathematical difficulties, depending on which definition of MD the authors would like to use), the experience of parents in supporting primary grade age students with MD, and how students progress in these mathematical areas (addition, multiplication) in years when there hasn't been a pandemic. I also recommend that the authors expand on their discussion of why this study is important and what it contributes.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The quality of the language used is fine.

Author Response

The topic of the effect of the covid pandemic on the mathematical learning of primary grade students with mathematical learning disabilities is an important one and one potentially of interest to researchers, teachers and students alike.

Thank you for your positive feedback

The manuscript puts forward two different studies: a survey of parents’ perceptions of their children’s mathematical needs, and a survey of teachers’ pedagogical practices regarding digital technologies in teaching math. Although these are both potentially interesting, at present these two studies are not well connected within the article. The presentation and discussion of the first study are the most fully developed, so my suggestion would be to focus on that and perhaps develop a separate article for the second study.

In the current version of the manuscript, we focused more on the first study than the second one. We have decided to include the second study, but we made it clear that there are two different studies in the current study section. We elaborated more on the first study in the general discussion.

Although the authors go to great lengths to describe the testing methods that which were used to identify certain students as being “MD” it would be very helpful to include a more developed literature review of research related to mathematical learning disabilities and mathematical difficulties. In particular, I noticed how the use of the acronym “MD” in this paper fluctuates between “mathematical learning disabilities” and “mathematical difficulties” (which are not the same thing) terms that are never defined in the paper.

In the present paper, "MD"  refers to mathematical learning disabilities rather than mathematical difficulties. We have included a literature review of research on mathematical learning disabilities in the introduction and provided a definition of MD in this version.

 

It would also be interesting to know what’s in the literature related to home-support in non-covid times by parents of grade 1 and 2 students with either mathematics learning disabilities or mathematics difficulties, as by necessity these parents are often more involved in supporting their children’s learning.

We have added these details to the introduction.

Anecdotally, I’ve heard from teachers and parents alike that teaching young children remotely during the pandemic was “a gong show” and at best online classes helped to keep some sense of social connection between the children and their teacher/school. Thus your hypothesis and your findings about the parents’ perceptions are not a surprise, nor is it a surprise that the TD group outperformed the MD group after schools returned to more regular practices. What I am not clear about is why you feel the parent’s perceptions are important – do their comments provide suggestions about how online teaching might be improved for students in this population? What I am also not clear about (and perhaps I missed this) is what the difference is between the performance of students in your study and the performance of students prior to pandemic who did not have this kind of interruption in their learning.

We have added it to the discussion we also included the educational implication section in the discussion. 

 

In conclusion, I recommend that the manuscript focus on the first study, that the literature review be more developed about mathematics learning disabilities (or mathematical difficulties, depending on which definition of MD the authors would like to use), the experience of parents in supporting primary grade age students with MD, and how students progress in these mathematical areas (addition, multiplication) in years when there hasn't been a pandemic. I also recommend that the authors expand on their discussion of why this study is important and what it contributes.

We have changed the manuscript dramatically in the current version including the definition of MD, and information regarding MD and we expand on the discussion of why this study is important and what it contributes.  

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

General comments: This is an interesting paper that addresses a pertinent issue - the effects of covid-19 on children with mathematical learning difficulties. The manuscript is well written and it is coherent across its different components of a research paper covering the main points proposed for a research paper. There are a few points that need to be clarified or completed.

I suggest to introduce Psychology in the key words.

 

Title: to think about, it would be shorter, and with the main ideas.

Suggestion:  Short-term and long-term effects of COVID-19 and remote learning: experiences of parents and teachers supporting children with a mathematical learning disability in Israel

 

Abstract: The abstract it is clearly presents the necessary information that briefly describes what will be developed throughout the manuscript. However, I suggest:

-  There's no need to number the different topics, as they are properly identified. I'd remove the numbering.

- The acronym TD has yet to be identified in the same way as MD (TD - typically developing children; MD -with mathematical learning disabilities)

- Identify the type of research that was opted, and which is an experimental research that involves the implementation of two studies.

 

Introduction: The author(s) chose to include the introduction to the study and the literature review/theoretical framework in the same section. The theoretical component needs to be more robust and is insufficiently developed, so I suggest reinforce it. In particular, almost nothing it is discussed about the supporting of parents and teachers to children with a mathematical learning disability, as well as about the mathematical learning of children with disabilities. These will be necessary to frame the further conclusions of the study.

 

The Present Study: As I mentioned in the abstract, it should be said very clear, at this point, that authors opted for an experimental research involving two studies with different objectives and approaches.  Each of the studies, experiment 1 and 2, will be explained in more detail later.

-Clarify further how the children were selected? Were all the children from grades 1 and 2? Was it the entire population of Israel? or from a certain area?

 

Experiment 1 & Experiment 2

These studies are described and discussed, however, I have a few small suggestions

-I suggest that the paragraph (lines 177-182) “The parents of all the participants form for participation (…) The study was approved both by the ethics committee of the (…).” As well of the lines 157-160 “ (…) ethics committee (…)” be summarized and placed in the item The Present Study since I think that these rules should cover both experiments.

-2.1.2.1. it would be interesting to show some of the tasks/tests, otherwise it's not clear what was used.

-In the following points, 2.1.2.3.,  2.1.2.4., 2.1.2.5.  appear a set of categories that we don't understand where they come from. Why Comparison is symbolic and Comparison Non-symbolic? Or why Visuospatial short-term and working memory.? And so on. Why these and no other categories? What is the theoretical support?

-I suggest that it is added near these tests (Corsi block test or Psychology Experiment Building Language- PEBL ) a link so that the non-psychologist readers can identify them, or put those weblinks in the references.

- line 276 , I suggest that the table 1, about the results of all questions, is removed from this item and introduced in the next section of the Results.

- Line 338 I suggest that the sentence, “It was found…. (see) figure 1” is removed from this place  and introduced after the Table 4.

-Line 341, put less space between rows in the Table4

- Lines 344-348, the subtitle of figure 1 is out of location. It should appear after the image with the responses.

-Line 433, clarify “10 fingers” I saw many things in the internet but  not the right one (identify better or with a weblink)

 

Discussion and conclusions. An interesting discussion of the results is presented as well as some conclusions. To support what it is said, there is a lack of theoretical references or similar empirical studies that allow us to see the consistency or non-consistency with the results. It would be important that the authors drew up some guidelines/suggestions for what can be done with the children of this study or with parents and educators in similar situations.

Author Response

General comments: This is an interesting paper that addresses a pertinent issue - the effects of covid-19 on children with mathematical learning difficulties. The manuscript is well written and it is coherent across its different components of a research paper covering the main points proposed for a research paper. There are a few points that need to be clarified or completed.

Thank you for your positive feedback

I suggest to introduce Psychology in the key words.

Done

Title: to think about, it would be shorter, and with the main ideas.

Suggestion:  Short-term and long-term effects of COVID-19 and remote learning: experiences of parents and teachers supporting children with a mathematical learning disability in Israel

Done

Abstract: The abstract it is clearly presents the necessary information that briefly describes what will be developed throughout the manuscript. However, I suggest:

-  There's no need to number the different topics, as they are properly identified. I'd remove the numbering.

- The acronym TD has yet to be identified in the same way as MD (TD - typically developing children; MD -with mathematical learning disabilities)

- Identify the type of research that was opted, and which is an experimental research that involves the implementation of two studies.

Done

Introduction: The author(s) chose to include the introduction to the study and the literature review/theoretical framework in the same section. The theoretical component needs to be more robust and is insufficiently developed, so I suggest reinforce it. In particular, almost nothing it is discussed about the supporting of parents and teachers to children with a mathematical learning disability, as well as about the mathematical learning of children with disabilities. These will be necessary to frame the further conclusions of the study.

Thank you for this comment. In the current version, we changed the introduction completely to include more details regarding the support of parents and teachers to children with a mathematical learning disability, and about the mathematical learning of children with disabilities.  

The Present Study: As I mentioned in the abstract, it should be said very clear, at this point, that authors opted for an experimental research involving two studies with different objectives and approaches.  Each of the studies, experiment 1 and 2, will be explained in more detail later.

We added it to the current study, please see page 3 line 116.

-Clarify further how the children were selected? Were all the children from grades 1 and 2? Was it the entire population of Israel? or from a certain area?

The children were tested two years after the lockdown, during the grades of 3^rd or 4^th. Two years before testing they were during the 1^st and 2^nd grades during the Covid time. All of them were from the North District of Israel. We added it to the current study section. 

Experiment 1 & Experiment 2

These studies are described and discussed, however, I have a few small suggestions

-I suggest that the paragraph (lines 177-182) “The parents of all the participants form for participation (…) The study was approved both by the ethics committee of the (…).” As well of the lines 157-160 “ (…) ethics committee (…)” be summarized and placed in the item The Present Study since I think that these rules should cover both experiments.

Done

-2.1.2.1. it would be interesting to show some of the tasks/tests, otherwise it's not clear what was used.

I have added examples of the problems that were used during the task.

-In the following points, 2.1.2.3.,  2.1.2.4., 2.1.2.5.  appear a set of categories that we don't understand where they come from. Why Comparison is symbolic and Comparison Non-symbolic? Or why Visuospatial short-term and working memory.? And so on. Why these and no other categories? What is the theoretical support?

The current set of data was part of a larger study testing the effect of COVID closure on multiple cognitive tasks. We added it to line 168. The rationale is that we collected the data for these tasks for other experiments.

-I suggest that it is added near these tests (Corsi block test or Psychology Experiment Building Language- PEBL ) a link so that the non-psychologist readers can identify them, or put those weblinks in the references.

Done

- line 276 , I suggest that the table 1, about the results of all questions, is removed from this item and introduced in the next section of the Results.

Done

- Line 338 I suggest that the sentence, “It was found…. (see) figure 1” is removed from this place  and introduced after the Table 4.

Done

-Line 341, put less space between rows in the Table4

Done

- Lines 344-348, the subtitle of figure 1 is out of location. It should appear after the image with the responses.

Done

-Line 433, clarify “10 fingers” I saw many things in the internet but  not the right one (identify better or with a weblink)

Done, we added the weblink

 

Discussion and conclusions. An interesting discussion of the results is presented as well as some conclusions. To support what it is said, there is a lack of theoretical references or similar empirical studies that allow us to see the consistency or non-consistency with the results. It would be important that the authors drew up some guidelines/suggestions for what can be done with the children of this study or with parents and educators in similar situations.

We have added it to the discussion we also included the educational implication section in the discussion. 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I reviewed an earlier draft of this manuscript.

I appreciate the authors' efforts to increase the literature review regarding the experiences of parents of students with learning disabilities in supporting their children with online learning during the pandemic.

I also appreciate that the authors have addressed the issue of being more consistent indentifying the type of learning disability they are studying. They are have indicated that their focus will be on dyscalculia. I am now wondering if the school testing used to diagnose and select the MD participants for this study was actually geared towards identifying dyscalculia or difficulties with mathematics. Participants who scored in the lowest 20% of students tested would be a very high proportion of the population to be considered to have dyscalculia, particularly given you noted earlier that the trend in the general population is 5-6%. As well, students tend to be diagnosed with mathematical learning disabilities when they are older [Powell, S. R., Fuchs, L. S., & Fuchs, D. (2013). Reaching the mountaintop: Addressing the common core standards in
mathematics for students with mathematics difficulties. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 28(1), 38–48.
https:// doi. org/ 10. 1111/ ldrp. 12001] so it would seems likely that the percentage of diagnosed students in grades 3 and 4 would be lower than 5-6%. So some further clarification here would be helpful.

My previous concern that this article contains two unrelated studies still stands and it is for this reason that I haven't completed the section of recommendations for the authors: my rating for study 1 is very different from what my rating is for study 2. Despite the changes made by the authors, the survey of what 15 teachers have reported about their digital practices in teaching still seems to me to be too unrelated to what the effects of online learning during the pandemic has been on young students with math learning disabilities has been. I recommend that this manuscript be revised to focus only on the 1st study.

 

Author Response

I reviewed an earlier draft of this manuscript.

I appreciate the authors' efforts to increase the literature review regarding parents' experiences of students with learning disabilities in supporting their children with online learning during the pandemic.

Thank you for your appreciation.

I also appreciate that the authors have addressed the issue of being more consistent indentifying the type of learning disability they are studying. They are have indicated that their focus will be on dyscalculia. I am now wondering if the school testing used to diagnose and select the MD participants for this study was actually geared towards identifying dyscalculia or difficulties with mathematics. Participants who scored in the lowest 20% of students tested would be a very high proportion of the population to be considered to have dyscalculia, particularly given you noted earlier that the trend in the general population is 5-6%. As well, students tend to be diagnosed with mathematical learning disabilities when they are older [Powell, S. R., Fuchs, L. S., & Fuchs, D. (2013). Reaching the mountaintop: Addressing the common core standards in
mathematics for students with mathematics difficulties. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 28(1), 38–48.
https:// doi. org/ 10. 1111/ ldrp. 12001] so it would seems likely that the percentage of diagnosed students in grades 3 and 4 would be lower than 5-6%. So some further clarification here would be helpful.

Thank you for your comment. We have addressed this issue in the introduction. Please refer to line 77: "Most studies agree on a prevalence rate of 5-6% for developmental dyscalculia among school-age children [23-27]. Mathematical Difficulty (MD) is more common, with an expected prevalence of 25% to 35% of the population [23, 24, 28, 29]. Therefore, in the current group, our definition would be MD."

My previous concern that this article contains two unrelated studies still stands and it is for this reason that I haven't completed the section of recommendations for the authors: my rating for study 1 is very different from what my rating is for study 2. Despite the changes made by the authors, the survey of what 15 teachers have reported about their digital practices in teaching still seems to me to be too unrelated to what the effects of online learning during the pandemic has been on young students with math learning disabilities has been. I recommend that this manuscript be revised to focus only on the 1st study.

According to the reviewer's comments, we omitted study 2, and the manuscript now includes only one study. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have followed most of the suggestions proposed, so the article is clearer and more robust. Congratulations to the authors and much success.

Author Response

Thak you for your positive feedback