Mathematics anxiety can be eased by tutoring, study says

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As kids head back to school, parents also head back to worrying about their child's academic performance. But for those whose kids are struggling with math, here is something worth looking into. A new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience reveals that individualized math tutoring can relieve anxiety related to doing math problems in children, according to NDTV.

TIME reports that according to the study’s senior author Vinod Menon, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine, about 17 to 30 percent of children have math anxiety. The study aimed to apply the same concept of exposure therapy. By exposing the children to the thing they fear, which is in this case, math, they can overcome their fear and better manage stress caused by solving math problems. It's the same concept of exposing a person who fears spiders to the thing they're most fearful of, but in a safe environment.

The study analyzed 46 third-graders who first assessed their math anxiety through a questionnaire. They were then sorted into the high level math anxiety group and low level math anxiety group. As the groups solved math problems, they had their brain scanned through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The scans revealed that those in the high level math anxiety group had increased activation in the brain's fear circuits, or the amygdala, the region responsible for processing fear stimuli and emotions.

Following these results, the children participated in an 8 week individual tutoring program with 22 lessons on addition and subtraction. The math anxiety test and fMRI scans were repeated to find out if there were any changes.

Results showed that after the one-on-one tutoring program, the amygdala of kids in the high level math anxiety group were no longer activated.

"Even at this young age, math stimuli can provoke, hyperactive and engage the emotion centers of the brain in ways that were not the case in children with low math anxiety," Menon told TIME.

Health Canal reports that according to the study’s lead author, research associate Kaustubh Supekar, PhD, "It’s reassuring that we could actually help these children reduce anxiety by mere exposure to problems."

Menon added: "The most exciting aspect of our findings is that cognitive tutoring not only improves performance, but is also anxiety-reducing."

The authors concluded that "repeated exposure can make the child feel more in control of situations involving mathematical problem solving, thereby diminishing their math anxiety."