Ece Demir-Lira
University of Iowa, IA·Psychology
More than one in ten babies is born preterm, before 37 weeks of pregnancy, and these children are more likely to struggle with math as they start school. Math skill predicts later school success, income, health and life satisfaction, yet it is not well understood why prematurity leads to math difficulties.
- Fields
Psychology
Neuroscience
Education Research
- Topics
preterm birth
prematurity
gestational age
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2030
What they work on
- Test a serial mediation model in which gestational age at birth affects children's number skills through their verbal skills and then through the brain systems for numbers, measured with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).
- Determine whether the home verbal environment, measured through lab observations of parent-child interaction and questionnaires, weakens the link between prematurity and children's numerical skills.
- Follow 240 children born between 23 and 41 weeks of gestation from pre-K to first grade, using standardized and lab-based tests of number, verbal and spatial skills to track early math development.
More about the research
This project asks how early birth, language skills, the developing brain and the home environment combine to shape children's early number skills.
Why it matters
Preterm birth rates are rising, and preterm-born children face lasting math difficulties that can limit their education, income and health. By pinpointing brain-based markers and modifiable home factors, such as parents' language support, this work could help schools and clinicians identify at-risk children early and design interventions before academic problems take hold.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
David Geary
University of Missouri-Columbia, MO·Psychology
Track the longitudinal development of core number knowledge, such as cardinality and counting, in preschoolers to identify early signs of school math readiness and math learning disability risk.
Geetha Ramani
University of Maryland, MD·Education Research
Test whether three-month home-based trainings on math communication, with and without gestures, increase the math talk and gestures used by parents and their preschool-age children during play.
Paul Regier
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Neuroscience·Early-career
Compare executive-function scores and prefrontal cortex activity, measured with fNIRS (light-based brain imaging), between people with opioid use disorder and healthy controls.
The school
University of Iowa: 32 labs on PI Pages, $703M a year on research, 418 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.