In this article, we draw on assemblage theory to investigate how children aged 5 engage with different material surfaces to explore ordinal and relational aspects of number. The children participate in an activity in which they first interact with a strip on the floor, then with a multi-touch iPad application, to work with numbers in expressive…

This systematic review provides an overview of existing evidence regarding the effect of touchscreen technology on young children's learning. Using PRISMA principles, we identified 53 studies in our review. The literature generally advocated positive effects of touchscreen devices on young children's learning with 34 studies reporting positive…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of free rotate gesture used in multi-touch screen design on pre-school children's achievement in learning shape. Multi-touch screen design enables users to perform multiple finger gestures such as free rotate, pinch and spread. The gestures are often selected because it is similar to…

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is an easy to use neuroimaging technique that is portable and maintains a liberal tolerance to movement. As such, fNIRS represents an ideal tool to observe children's neural activity as they engage in real-world classroom activities, such as the interaction with digital math apps on an iPad. Here, we…

Understanding mathematical concepts is important for all students, although often challenging for many students with disabilities. Historically, educators have used concrete manipulatives to support and build conceptual understanding. Mobile devices provide a valuable option to support students with disabilities in mathematics through app-based…

The purpose of this study was to contribute to the research on mathematics app use by very young children, and specifically mathematics apps for touch-screen mobile devices that contain virtual manipulatives. The study used a convergent parallel mixed methods design, in which quantitative and qualitative data were collected in parallel, analyzed…

Several studies have investigated children's engagement with repeating pattern tasks, but few have related to patterns with ABA as the minimal unit of repeat. This study focuses on identifying intuitive characteristics of children's work as they engage with repeating pattern tasks of different structures, focusing on the differences between ABA…

The purpose of the inquiry was to understand how children in primary grades (i.e., preschool, kindergarten, and second grade) engaged with affordances and constraints of features in a Base-10 Blocks virtual manipulative mathematics app designed to promote learning opportunities. Researchers conducted one-to-one interviews with 100 primary grade…

Elementary students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) who struggle with mathematics may be limited in opportunities to pursue advanced mathematics potentially impacting post-school outcomes, including postsecondary education and employment opportunities. Interventions that provide visual instruction, such as manipulatives, along with systematic…

This paper explores how a young child (56 m) builds an understanding of the cardinality principle through communicative, touchscreen-based activities involving talk, gesture and body engagement working via multimodal, touchscreen interface using contemporary mobile technology. Drawing upon Nemirovsky's perceptuomotor integration theoretical lens…

The purpose of this study was to explore relationships between app affordances and user abilities in second graders' interactions with mathematics virtual manipulative touchscreen tablet apps. The research questions focused on varying manifestations of affordance-ability relationships during children's interactions with mathematics virtual…

Interactions with technology have become a focus of education research, revealing specific constructs relevant to these interactions. Attributes of users and tools contribute to physically embodied interactions with technology and both users and tools modify attributes throughout these interactions. This study examines patterns of user-tool…

The purpose of this study was to examine patterns of mathematical practices evident during children's interactions with touchscreen mathematics virtual manipulatives. Researchers analyzed 33 Kindergarten children's interactions during activities involving apps featuring mathematical content of early number sense or quantity in base ten, recorded…

This article proposes a framework for classroom teachers to use in making pedagogical decisions regarding which mathematical materials (concrete and digital) to use, when they might be most appropriately used, and why. Two iPad apps ("Area of Shapes (Parallelogram)" and "Area of Parallelogram") are also evaluated to demonstrate…

This paper focuses on understanding the role that affordances played in children's learning performance and efficiency during clinical interviews of their interactions with mathematics apps on touch-screen devices. One hundred children, ages 3 to 8, each used six different virtual manipulative mathematics apps during 30-40-min interviews. The…