Detecting a pattern within a sequence of ordered units, defined as patterning, is a cognitive ability that is important in learning mathematics and influential in learning to read. The present study was designed to examine relations between first-grade children's executive functions, patterning, and reading abilities, and to examine whether these…

Young children have been taught simple sequences of alternating shapes and colors, referred to as "patterning", for the past half century in the hope that their understanding of pre-algebra and their mathematics achievement would be improved. The evidence that such patterning instruction actually improves children's academic achievement…

In a multiple baseline design, a teenager with a mental age of four years was taught two abstractions. One was the oddity principle (selecting the one object in a group which differs from the rest). The other was seriation (aligning objects along a continuum of size, and inserting new objects into their proper places in the alignments). These…