Numerical cognition in Brazil: a narrative review of a growing research field ( Cognición numérica en Brasil: una revisión de un campo de investigación en desarrollo )

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to describe the trends in current Brazilian research in numerical cognition, highlighting papers published in the last five years. The studies included in the narrative review have been described considering three thematic groups: numbers; operations and problem-solving; and difficulties or disabilities in learning mathematics. Besides describing the most recent papers in this field, the article includes specific issues, i.e., the active research groups and ways of publishing the research results. The most important conclusions are: there is a diverse growing research field of numerical cognition in Brazil; there is an emphasis on basic research, rather than applied research; most of the research is about children with learning disabilities or difficulties. Despite this growing research in the field, there are no recorded repercussions of the research in Brazil´s educational system, which is a very important challenge for Brazilian researchers.