ABSTRACT

Math abilities predict children’s academic achievement and outcomes in adulthood such as full-time employment and income. Previous work indicates that parenting factors (i.e., education, parent math ability, frequency of math activities) relate to children’s math performance. Further, research demonstrates that both domain-general (i.e., language skills, inhibitory control) and domain-specific (i.e., approximate number system acuity, spontaneous focusing on number) cognitive predictors are related to math during early childhood. However, no work has examined all of these factors together to identify their unique contributions for early math. Here, we examine whether parent-level and child-level factors uniquely explain children’s math abilities. To this end, 112 four-year-old children and one of their parents completed a battery of assessments and questionnaires. Results indicate that children’s math performance is uniquely predicted by the frequency of home math activities, as well as children’s own inhibitory control, approximate number system acuity, and tendency to spontaneously focus on number.

摘要

数学能力可以预测儿童的成年学习成绩和成果，例如全职工作和收入。先前的工作表明育儿因素（即教育程度，父母的数学能力，数学活动的频率）与孩子的数学成绩有关。此外，研究表明，领域通用（即语言技能，抑制控制）和领域特定（即近似数字系统敏锐度，自发关注数字）认知预测因子都与幼儿期的数学有关。但是，没有工作将所有这些因素结合在一起来确定它们对早期数学的独特贡献。在这里，我们检查父母和孩子水平的因素是否可以唯一解释孩子的数学能力。为此，112名4岁的孩子和他们的父母之一完成了一系列评估和问卷调查。结果表明，孩子的数学成绩是由家庭数学活动的频率，孩子自己的抑制性控制，近似数字系统的敏锐度以及自发关注数字的倾向来唯一预测的。