How do math and reading abilities intersect? Investigators were nearing solutions.

For cognitive neuroscientist Nadine Gaab, the abrupt ending of a five-year grant one year ahead of schedule arrived at the worst possible time. As part of an investigation aimed at comprehending the simultaneous development of math and reading abilities from preschool through elementary years, Gaab and her research team had tracked 163 students for up to four years. In May, just before the concluding year of the study, they were gearing up to assess the participants to determine which children were likely to face challenges in math and reading.

However, due to the termination of Gaab’s research amid the federal funding reductions announced by the Trump administration—including the halting of over $2.2 billion in federal grant allocations in an ongoing dispute with Harvard—the research could not be finalized. Recently, it received interim funding from Harvard Graduate School of Education, which will facilitate minimal research activities. Yet, Gaab’s team will be unable to reevaluate participants’ brain development, a critical component of the investigation.

An associate professor of education at the Ed School, Gaab expressed that she cannot overemphasize the consequences of the grant’s termination.

“This was the most crucial year because we were about to observe which children displayed typical versus atypical reading and math abilities,” remarked Gaab, principal investigator of the Gaab Lab. “It’s akin to attempting to prevent heart disease while studying various protective and risk factors for four years, and toward the end, wanting to identify who developed heart disease and who did not. Now, with the termination of the grant, we cannot ascertain which children face challenges in math or reading. This is profoundly upsetting.”

While researchers primarily enlisted preschoolers from the New England area, the significance of the termination reached beyond local bounds. Each year, numerous families—some traveling from as distant as California and Alaska—journeyed to Cambridge to be part of the innovative study that also monitored the children’s brain development. For many families, the opportunity to receive yearly updates regarding their child’s progress in math and reading provided a compelling motivation for participation.

Titled the Children’s Arithmetic, Language, and Cognition (CALC) study, it was designed to investigate how mathematical and reading skills evolve and interact over time, utilizing a thorough evaluation of linguistic and cognitive abilities, assessments of brain structure and function, and insights into the home learning environment.

Through outreach initiatives, the researchers at the Gaab Lab successfully gathered a distinctive sample for this study, including children with family backgrounds of reading struggles, math difficulties, or both. It is recognized that children from such families possess a heightened risk of experiencing learning difficulties themselves. The objective was to track the developmental paths of math and reading skills in these groups to pinpoint when and how they diverge from those of typically developing children. “We aimed to understand the impact of environmental factors, having an older sibling, or a parent with a reading disability on these development paths,” stated Gaab.

Researchers were hopeful that the $4.1 million grant would illuminate a phenomenon noted by education specialists: the frequent co-occurrence of math and reading disabilities among certain students. Experts theorize that if students face challenges with language or reading, those difficulties could disrupt their comprehension of mathematical concepts.

“Mathematics teaching involves substantial language components,” explained Gaab. “However, other factors such as working memory and executive functioning, necessary for both reading and math skills, also play a role, and we are intrigued by overlapping brain regions that might elucidate this high co-occurrence.”

Beyond unraveling the interplay between language and mathematical development, the outcomes of the study could have significant impacts on how mathematics is taught in early formal education and further affect the evolution of early screening tools, according to Gaab.

“A significant outcome of this research was not just to create early screening instruments to identify children at risk, but also to explore whether we ought to modify our methods of teaching math,” Gaab remarked. “This might involve adjusting math instruction or being mindful of children who face language challenges during math lessons.”

Due to the disruption of the grant, Gaab was compelled to dismiss several team members and end a subcontract with a Canadian university that included a postdoctoral fellow. The essential training required for research staff can be lengthy and rigorous; sudden funding cuts could impact Gaab’s research well into the future, even if funding were to be reinstated.

Gaab is appreciative that her research was chosen for interim funding from the University, which at least enables the researchers to evaluate some students’ reading and math abilities. Conducting neuroimaging research via MRI on the participants will be prohibitively expensive, Gaab noted, but analyzing their math and reading results following four years of formal instruction will yield valuable insights.

“Understanding how math and reading skills evolve over time in typical and atypical populations could aid in developing early screening tools,” Gaab stated. “We could identify early those who may struggle or are more likely to do so. This research can also help shape intervention strategies to best support struggling students and contribute to better curriculum designs for teaching reading and math. This is a study that could benefit all children and educators in the long run.”