I use a neuro-cognitive approach to study developmental disorders. In particular, by using Event-Related Potentials (ERP) methodology and experimental tasks adopted from cognitive psychology, I investigate specific cognitive processes and their failure in developmental dyscalculia. Current research in my lab focuses on ordinality, estimation, working memory, and inhibition. We are interested in the typical development of these critical aspects of cognitive function, their efficiency in various neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g., developmental dyscalculia, ADHD, reading disorder), and their sensitivity to emotion and more specifically to math anxiety. Our research on numerical cognition emphasizes the idea that numerical cognition is not a single mechanism, but is instead functioning within diverse neurocognitive subsystems in different conditions.

We aim to continue investigating the underlying cognitive causes of developmental dyscalculia and other associated neurodevelopmental disorders and to link them to behavioural symptoms as well as to brain systems. We intend to make this research relevant to the education of people with developmental disorders.

E-Mail: orly.rubinsten@gmail.com

I completed my Ph.D. in 2020 at Tel Aviv University under the supervision of Prof. Lilach Shalev-Mevorach, that focused on numerical cognition, attention functioning, working memory and academic achievements in math among children and adolescents. I hold a MA in Learning Disabilities from the Hebrew University, and a BA in Education and Sociology from the Hebrew University. I'm also hold a teaching certificate for special education from the Hebrew University. Lecturer and pedagogical instructor in the special education at David Yellin College in Jerusalem, and I'm teaching theoretical and practical courses in the field of tailored teaching in math and learning strategies. Currently, I am starting my Postdoctoral on behalf of MOFFAT Institute, under the supervision of Prof. Orly Rubinsten. My research will focus on emotional regulation among math teachers and the implementing practices for coping with student math anxiety.

E-Mail: moransitbon@gmail.com‏

I hold a B.A in Management Information Systems from Haifa University (2010), and a teaching certificate for special education from Oranim College (2013). I am also an MA graduate of the “Interdisciplinary Program in Difficulties and Learning Disabilities in Arithmetic and Mathematics”. In the last 6 years, I have been teaching children with learning difficulties at the “Beit-Ruth” center, and working as a teaching assistant in the department of special education in Oranim college. Currently, I am a PhD student. My research focuses on perception of parts and the whole in dyscalculia.

E-Mail: wolkmichal@gmail.com‏

I am Dassie Segal, the oldest of Prof. Orly Rubinsten’s PhD students. I am a life partner to David, a mother to Eyal and Adi, and a grandmother to three cute grandchildren. For many years, I have been teaching the field of learning disabilities in arithmetic, in the Gordon and Oranim colleges. I’ve developed diagnostics and learning strategies. Now I am writing my PhD research on “Numerical non-symbolic and symbolic magnitude representations” among first and second grade students. At the current stage, I am writing an article on a research that examined the accuracy in the non-symbolic system and the effect of inhibition on it.

E-Mail: segaldassie@gmail.com

I graduated from Haifa University with an MA in Learning Disabilities (2008), where I worked with Prof. Avi Karni on cognitive skills required for intact solutions of arithmetic facts.

My main interest is in the neuro-cognitive mechanism of subitizing and counting and its developmental course. I study the effects that numerical representations have on arithmetical and mathematical performance and the different manifestations of numerical representations among different types of learning disabilities, such as ADHD and developmental dyscalculia.

E-Mail: hilakanner@gmail.com

I graduated from Haifa University with an MA in Learning Disabilities and in Occupational Therapy (B.OT).

My research focuses on math anxiety (MA) as a multi – dimensional phenomenon, the preliminary phase of MA and the components affecting it. My research goals are to define whether different cognitive profiles (verbal or spatial) influence development of MA, to define how teaching techniques and different mathematical tasks affect MA, and to establish the relationship between MA and students' career choices.

E-Mail: hilieidlin@gmail.com‏

I am a Ph.D student at the Department of Learning Disabilities, University of Haifa. I hold a M.A in Learning Disabilities, and a B.A in Counseling and Human Development and Special Education from the University of Haifa.

My Ph.D. Thesis focuses on the role of emotion regulation in the development of math anxiety. My research goals are to define profiles of emotion regulation strategies among math-anxious individuals; to examine whether different emotion regulation strategies influence the development of math anxiety and mitigate the effects of anxiety on performance; and to investigate whether adaptive emotion regulation strategies can be developed in math-anxious individuals.

E-Mail: litaldaches@gmail.com

I am a Master’s student in the Educational Psychology program at the University of Haifa.

I received my B.A. in Psychology and Cognitive Science from Ben Gurion University, in 2019.

Currently, I am writing a Master’s thesis under the joint supervision of Prof. Orly Rubinsten and Prof. Bat-Sheva Hadad. My M.A. thesis research focuses on Perceptual Grouping, that is part of human Gestalt perception.

The thesis aims to clarify the important role of Perceptual Grouping among individuals with Developmental Dyscalculia.

E-Mail: scynovic@campus.haifa.ac.il‏

Since receiving my B.Ed in Special Education and Math Education from Oranim College, I’ve been working as a high school math teach, and recently started teaching a course on the development of numeracy at young ages at Oranim College. I am an M.A. student at the faculty for Learning Disabilities at Haifa University, currently working on my thesis at the Language and Numbers Lab under Prof. Orly Rubinsten. My research focuses on the investigation of physiological measures of mathematical anxiety.

E-Mail: layzer.lil@gmail.com‏

A master’s degree student in the department of learning disabilities in the faculty of education in Haifa university. B.A in education and history from Oranim college. My master’s thesis will focus on non-symbolic and symbolic numerical magnitude processing in young children. My research is a part of a longitudinal study following children’s executive functions, mathematical and lingual skills, from pre-school to the second grade.

E-Mail: sapir8n@gmail.com‏

I received my B.Ed. in Special Education (Ages 6-21) and High School Math Education including a teaching certificate from the Gordon College of Education at Haifa. I am an M.A. student in the faculty of Learning Disabilities at Haifa University. My thesis guided by Prof. Rubinsten, will try to shed light on how Math Anxiety would be mediated by Age, Emotion Regulation, Math Performance and anxiety in general among women in two age groups (young and mature women).

E-Mail: shaked451@gmail.com

I am a B.A. graduate in Psychology and English Language and Literature, and an M.A. graduate in Occupational-Organizational Psychology, from the University of Haifa. For the last few years I have been working with Dr. Tamar Degani from the Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders at the University of Haifa, managing her Multilingual Lab. While working together, we have conducted a study examining interactions of translation ambiguity and individual differences in cognitive resources and linguistic background during foreign vocabulary learning. Native Hebrew speakers and Russian-Hebrew multilinguals learned the phonological form of unambiguous and ambiguous Arabic words along with their Hebrew translation and meaning definition. Results from translation-production and meaning-recognition tests revealed greater difficulty in learning translation-ambiguous words than translation unambiguous ones. Further, learners’ phonological memory was associated with overall better learning, but also with increased translation-ambiguity cost. Finally, learners’ proficiency in the language from which learning took place (Hebrew), but not degree of multilingualism, modulated learning. This study is to be published in the Language Learning academic journal.

E-Mail: mirkin.kru@gmail.com

E-Mail: roni.hacham1@gmail.com‏

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I hold a B.A in Occupational Therapy from University of Haifa and an MA in Learning Disabilities, from the division of Brain and Learning at the University of Haifa. My MA research focused on math anxiety and meta-cognition and examined whether matacognition affects the link between math anxiety and math performance. In recent years I have been engaged in teaching math and developing cognitive skills in children.

E-Mail: shaharev@gmail.com‏

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I hold a B.A in of Behavioral Sciences from the Max Stern Yezreel Valley academic college and an M.A. from the Department of Learning Disabilities at the University of Haifa. In my M.A., my research aimed to examine differences between students who study high level mathematics and students who study humanities, in solving symbolic and non-symbolic comparisons, by comparing the different reaction times (RT), accuracy (ACC) and ratio effect. In addition, I was examining whether the high-level mathematical expertise and basic numerical skills (processing symbolic vs. non-symbolic arithmetic) share common roots in either nonlinguistic/spatial or linguistic brain circuit.

E-Mail: tzliled@gmail.com‏

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I hold a B.A in Education of Learning Disabilities from the Western Galilee academic college and an M.A from the Department of Learning Disabilities at University of Haifa.

My research, supervised by Dr. Orly Rubinsten, aimed to examine differences between students with developmental dyscalculia (DD) and students with typical development in mathematics in solving symbolic and non-symbolic comparisons by comparing the different reaction times (RT), accuracy (ACC) and ratio effect. Based on the differences we can understand better whether students with DD are deficient in one or both of the numerical representation systems.

E-Mail: niritf2222@gmail.com‏

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I graduated from Haifa University with a BA in Nursing (2009), and worked as a Hospital Nurse for 6.5 years. Also, I am an MA graduate of the Learning Disabilities department at the University of Haifa.

My research, supervised by Dr. Orly Rubinsten and Dr. Bat-Sheva Hadad, aimed at investigating basic magnitude perception in dyscalculia. Specifically, our research aimed at investigating if the presentation of acquired visual cues (such as perceptual depth cues or contextual pictorial cues) can significantly reduce cognitive limits on size perception in dyscalculia.

E-Mail: koremnsn@gmail.com

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I am a post-doc in the Numbers laboratory and the Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities in the University of Haifa. I finished my Ph.D. in bio-psychology under the supervision of Prof. Irit Akirav entitled “Cannabinoids modulation of the effects of trauma and reminders on extinction and synaptic plasticity in a rat model of PTSD”. I did my B.A. in psychology and management in the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva.

In My post-doc, I will focus on coping mechanisms and treatment of general anxiety and math anxiety using physiological (GSR/SCR) and electro-physiological (EEG/ERP) measures. In addition, I will try to combine knowledge from the cognitive and neuroscience domains in order to develop new treatment approach.

E-Mail: surydana@gmail.com‏

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I study numerical cognition and specifically the developmental pattern of the neuro-cognitive ability to process ordinal information. I investigate whether this ability might be considered a core cognitive ability.

E-Mail: furmantamar@gmail.com‏

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I study the non-symbolic approximate mathematical operation and its relation to the ability to solve approximate or exact symbolic mathematical operations. Moreover, I examine whether these abilities are related to mathematical ability.

E-Mail: noam.saragossi@gmail.com

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I graduated from Haifa University with an MA in Learning Disabilities in 2013, supervised by Dr. Orly Rubinstein. My research focused on gender differences in math anxiety and the use of implicit (rather than explicit) measurement in order to examine this phenomenon.

My current research focuses on the biological, cognitive and environmental aspects of math anxiety, examining the possible reasons for this phenomenon and possible effective ways of treatment.

E-Mail: levin.naama@gmail.com‏

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I graduated from Haifa University with an MA in Learning Disabilities in 2013, supervised by Dr. Orly Rubinstein. My research focused on gender differences in math anxiety and the use of implicit (rather than explicit) measurement in order to examine this phenomenon.

I am a teacher of Mathematics for 7th – 10th grade students. I hold a B.Sc. in Industrial and Management Engineering from Ben-Gurion University.

I investigate the relations between symbolic and non-symbolic numerical representation with the hope of identifying reliable markers of math performance during schooling.

E-Mail: eladav84@gmail.com‏

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I received a B.Ed. in math education and have a teaching certification for elementary school, I am a class tutor and math teacher at elementary school.

I studied my B.Ed at the Excellence Program of the Ministry of Education at the Levinsky College of Education. I am currently studying my M.A in University of Haifa in the "Interdisciplinary Program in Difficulties and Learning Disabilities in Arithmetic and Mathematics".

In my research, I focus on professional preferences among children ("What do I want to be when I grow up?") and the connection between professional preferences to mathematical abilities and to math anxiety.

E-Mail: orlyakibli@gmail.com‏

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I received a BA in Psychology from the University of Haifa in 2012.

My investigation focuses on a new cognitive tool that might be used to help in the detection of math anxiety.

E-Mail: mouna_r_15@hotmail.com

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I received a B.A. in Mathematics & Communication (2012) and a M.A. in Learning Disabilities (2016), both from the University of Haifa.

My M.A. research was supervised by Prof. Avi Karni and Prof. Orly Rubenstein, where I focused on the effect of intensive training on multiplication fact identification and multiplication fact retrieval among adults with developmental dyscalculia.

Today, I am a Ph.D student at the Department of Mathematics Education, University of Haifa. My current research focuses on the consequences of using technological mathematical modelling in the learning and teaching process, and it's supervised by Prof. Michal Yerushalmy and Dr. Shay Olsher.

E-Mail: nzigelman@gmail.com

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I work as a home teacher and as a mathematics teacher in elementary school. In addition, I work as a remedial mathematics teacher in learning disabilities institute.

I got my B.ED from the excellence program of Seminar Hakibbutzim specializing in elementary school education and mathematics. I am currently studying my MA in Haifa University in the "Interdisciplinary Program in Difficulties and Learning Disabilities in Arithmetic and Mathematics".

The role of the teacher today has developed considerably, from being a transmitter of knowledge to encompassing all aspects of the learning, cognitive and emotional development, as well as self and general perceptions.

My work examines the effects of academic and non-academic aspects of teachers' competence, on students' math anxiety.

E-Mail: shirley.nim@gmail.com‏

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I hold a BA in Psychology & Cognitive Science from the Hebrew University (2011).

My work, supervised by Prof. Tami Katzir and Dr. Orly Rubinsten, focuses on how the knowledge of elementary school teachers about cognitive mechanisms affects the acquisition of reading and arithmetic.

E-Mail: litalzeevi@gmail.com‏

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I am a teacher of Mathematics Integration for 7th – 9th grade students. She holds a BA in special and mathematics education.

I am currently investigating the factors that predict success in high school mathematics, specifically in terms of symbolic and non-symbolic representations and cognitive processes.

E-Mail: naamagilad@gmail.com

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I received a B.A. in Behavioral Sciences from Ben-Gurion University in 2012. Today, I’m a M.A. student at the Department of Learning Disabilities, University of Haifa.

My current research focuses on the factors underlying math anxious children's judgment and decision making.

E-Mail: Laurain.Fares@gmail.com‏

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I hold a B.A in Special Education & Counseling and Human Development from the University of Haifa. I am currently a MA student in the Department of Learning Disabilities at University of Haifa.

My research will be a longitudinal study that focuses on investigating how Math Anxiety and Mathematics Achievements affect the students' career choices.