Nancy Estévez Pérez

Cuban Neuroscience Center | CNEURO · Neurodevelopment Lab

The purpose of the current study was to qualitatively explore the home mathematical environment across two regions in two different countries (i.e., Cuba and Mexico), replicating a qualitative study previously conducted in Northern Ireland (NI), United Kingdom (Cahoon et al., 2017). Semi‐structured interviews with parents/caregivers of children (3‐...

The purpose of these meta-analyses was to examine the effectiveness of home-based interventions aimed at improving literacy and mathematics outcomes for preschool-age children (mean age = 4.29 years; range = 3.07–5.32 years) and to develop an understanding of what home-based interventions work in different contexts. A total of 32 studies met the in...

Introducción: diversos estudios proveen evidencias sobre la asociación negativa entre la ansiedad hacia las matemáticas y el rendimiento matemático. Sin embargo, no hay consenso sobre los factores que moderan esta relación. La presente investigación sintetizó los resultados en relación al vínculo entre ansiedad hacia las matemáticas y rendimiento m...

Introducción: diversos estudios proveen evidencias sobre la asociación negativa entre la ansiedad hacia las matemáticas y el rendimiento matemático. Sin embargo, no hay consenso sobre los factores que moderan esta relación. La presente investigación sintetizó los resultados en relación al vínculo entre ansiedad hacia las matemáticas y rendimiento m...

The purpose of the current study was to qualitatively explore the home mathematical environment across two regions in two different countries (i.e., Cuba and Mexico), replicating a qualitative study previously conducted in Northern Ireland (NI), United Kingdom (UK; Cahoon et al., 2017). Semi-structured interviews with parents/caregivers of children...

Updated post peer review. Early mathematical skills predict later educational achievement, employment opportunities, and broader health outcomes (Davies-Keane et al., 2020; Duncan et al., 2007; Williams, 2003). Some research suggests that school-entry mathematical skills are better predictors for later academic achievement in mathematics, reading a...

For more than half a century, a set of theories have postulated the advantages of active learning, and the implications of this approach for pedagogy, however, not enough information was found to address this issue comprehensively from its different investigative perspectives. The article aims to expose the most recognized cognitive and pedagogical...

Introducción. La relevancia de las evidencias provenientes de las neurociencias para potenciar el desarrollo infantil y el rendimiento académico ha sido reconocida por formuladores de políticas, maestros y padres de todo el mundo. Sin embargo, ha sido indispensable que este conocimiento altamente especializado sea interpretado y traducido en estrat...

Introduction. The relevance of neurosciences research for promoting child development is recognized worldwide by policy makers, teachers and parents. However, it is essential that this highly specialized knowledge be interpreted and translated into concrete strategies and instruments to be applied at school, at home, and in specialized care setting...

Introduction. The relevance of neurosciences research for promoting child development is recognized worldwide by policy makers, teachers and parents. However, it is essential that this highly specialized knowledge be interpreted and translated into concrete strategies and instruments to be applied at school, at home, and in specialized care setting...

There is current debate regarding the neurocognitive underpinnings of numerical cognition and its relevance for educational practice. A series of collaborative studies were conducted in Cuba and Chile, during the past 10 years, addressing (1) neural foundations of numerical processing and (2) the specific contributions of domain-specific and domain...

Height preferences reflecting positive assortative mating for height—wherein an individual’s own height positively predicts the preferred height of their mate—have been observed in several distinct human populations and are thought to increase reproductive fitness. However, the extent to which assortative preferences for height differ strategically...

The purpose of these meta-analyses were to examine the effectiveness of home-based interventions aimed at improving literacy and mathematics outcomes for preschool aged children (mean age = 4.29; range = 3.07 to 5.32 years) and to develop an understanding of what home-based interventions work in different contexts. A total of 32 studies met the inc...

There is current debate regarding the neurocognitive underpinnings of numerical cognition and its relevance for educational practice. A series of collaborative studies were conducted in Cuba and Chile, during the past 10 years, addressing 1) neural foundations of numerical processing and 2) the specific contributions of domain-specific and domain-g...

Introducción: La competencia en matemáticas se encuentra relacionada con el desarrollo de habilidades básicas para el procesamiento numérico (simbólico y no simbólico) desde etapas tempranas del desarrollo y antes de la escolarización formal. Existe evidencia a favor de que el ambiente del hogar proporciona experiencias que facilitan la adquisición...

Introducción: La intervención desde un enfoque neuropsicológico permite conseguir mejoras, aportar estrategias y proponer cambios que impactan el aprendizaje y la salud cognitiva de los participantes. El empleo de videojuegos muestra mejoras en habilidades de dominio general como la memoria de trabajo y de dominio específico como el rendimiento. O...

This article synthesizes findings from an international virtual conference, funded by the United States National Science Foundation, focused on the home mathematics environment (HME). In light of inconsistencies and gaps in research investigating relations between the HME and children’s outcomes, the purpose of the conference was to discuss actiona...

Nowadays, there is still debate about the origin of arithmetic disabilities. Two predominant hypotheses have been developed in this regard: 1) difficulties in arithmetic appear due to a deficit in domain-specific skills (numerical skills) and 2) there is a strong relationship between the development of the domain-general processes and arithmetical...

Introduction: Current cognitive theories suggest that mathematical learning disabilities may be caused by a dysfunction in the ability to represent non-symbolic numerosity (non-symbolic skills), by impairments in the ability to associate symbolic numerical representations with the underlying analogic non-numerical magnitude representation (symbolic...

We tested whether positive assortative preferences for height are observed in a large cross-cultural sample of men and women (536 adults aged 15-77 from Canada, Cuba, Norway and the United States), and whether assortative preferences for height differ for hypothetical long- versus short-term relationship partners. Participants indicated their heigh...

Establishing bridges between the findings from cognitive neurosciences and teaching practice has not been systematically achieved. However, many researchers interested in this area agree on the positive impact that knowledge on how the brain learns has on teaching practices and educational policies. For more than 15 years, the Laboratory for Educat...

Assessing reading comprehension is vital to successful learning. However, in Cuba we do not have enough standard instruments to do so. This article aims to adapt to the Cuban context the Test to Evaluate Reading Comprehension (PECL) in students from 5th to 7th grade general education. The adaptation, from a quantitative approach, was carried out fr...

Background Pediatric patients with circumscribed cerebellar pilocytic astrocytoma (PA) tumors generally perform within the normal range on neuropsychological tests after a complete tumor resection. The outcome in academically relevant abilities such as mathematics, which in adults involve some cerebellar functions, is however much less understood....

Basic numerical processing has been regularly assessed using numerical nonsymbolic and symbolic comparison tasks. It has been assumed that these tasks index similar underlying processes. However, the evidence concerning the reliability and convergent validity across different versions of these tasks is inconclusive. We explored the reliability and...

Neuroimaging studies aiming at the association between brain morphometric descriptors and individual variability in basic numerical abilities reported as useful predictors of arithmetic performance are scarce. Previous evidence in Turner Syndrome suggests the depth and length of the Intraparietal Sulcus (SIP) can be related to subitizing deficits p...

Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is a monogenetic syndrome generally associated with intellectual deficiency and learning disabilities (LD). In the symptomatology of this genetic condition appear lesions in brain white matter (WM). Recently, a growing numbers of research take advantage of Diffusion Tensor Image (DTI) to obtain in vivo information abo...

Neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1) is a genetic condition generally associated with intellectual deficiency and learning disabilities. Although there have been groundbreaking advances in the understanding of the molecular, cellular, and neural systems underlying learning deficits associated to NF1 in animal models, much remains to be learned about the spect...

The association of enumeration and number comparison capacities with arithmetical competence was examined in a large sample of children from 2nd to 9th grades. It was found that efficiency on numerical capacities predicted separately more than 25% of the variance in the individual differences on a timed arithmetical test, and this occurred for both...

Although basic numerical skills have been widely studied in the last years, very few studies have undertaken a developmental approach. The present study evaluated the development of the magnitude comparison basic numerical ability, in children from first, third and sixth grades by means of the subject's response time in numerical tasks presented in...

Learning to read is one of the most important cognitive milestones in the human social environment. One of the most accepted models explaining such process is the Double-Route Cascaded Model. It suggests the existence of two reading strategies: lexical and sublexical. In the Spanish language there are some contradictions about how these strategies...

To analyze the current theories describing the cognitive mechanisms underlying developmental dyscalculia. The four most researched hypotheses concerning the cognitive deficits related to developmental dyscalculia, as well as experimental evidences supporting or refusing them are presented. The first hypothesis states that developmental dyscalculia...

Objetivo. Analizar las teorías contemporáneas que describen los mecanismos cognitivos que subyacen a la discalculia del desarrollo. Desarrollo. Se presentan las cuatro hipótesis más estudiadas en la actualidad acerca de los déficit cognitivos vinculados a la discalculia del desarrollo, así como las evidencias experimentales que las apoyan o contrad...