The Number Race For Mac

The Number Race software is designed for remediation of dyscalculia in children aged 4-8. It may also be useful for prevention of dyscalculia, or to teach number sense in kindergarten children without specific learning disabilities.

The software trains number sense with single digit numbers, one-to-one correspondance, numerical comparison, reading arabic digits, enumeration, counting, and simple (1-digit) addition and subtraction.

The software is an adaptive game, which trains children on an entertaining numerical comparison task. It adjusts the difficulty of the task to their level of performance, maintaining their average success at 75%.

Children have to choose the larger of two quantities of treasure (or coconuts) before the competitor character (controlled by the computer) steals the largest. In higher levels, children may have to add or subtract in order to make the comparison.

They then use the set of gold pieces or coconuts that they selected in order to advance in a race against the competitor character. At higher levels, they have to try and avoid hazards, which appear at random on some board squares and cause characters to go backwards when landed on.

When children reach the end of the board before their computer-driven competitor does, they collect a reward. After enough rewards are collected, they can unlock a new character to play with.

The adaptive algorithm of the game adjusts the numerical distance between the quantities to be compared, the length of the response deadline, and the complexity of the choice (in terms of ratio of symbolic to non symbolic representations of number, and presence of addition and or subtraction).