The cognitive complexity of adults’ questions, particularly during shared book reading, supports children’s developing language skills. Questions can be described as having low cognitive demand (CD; e.g., labeling, matching) or high-CD (e.g., comparing, predicting). Little is known about the relation between different types of parental questioning and children’s math abilities. The current study examined the quantity of low- and high-CD and domain-specific math questions that parents posed to their 4-year-old children in three structured activities and how the frequency of those questions relates to children’s concurrent math and language skills. Parent–child dyads (n = 121) were observed interacting with a picture book, grocery store toys, and a puzzle for about 5 min each, and children completed math and spatial assessments. Although the frequency with which parents asked questions did not relate to children’s outcomes, parents’ use of high-CD questions was associated with children’s spatial skills, standardized math scores, and vocabulary skills after controlling for parental utterances, child utterances, child age, and family socioeconomic status. However, domain-specific math questions were not related to any child outcomes above and beyond parents’ total questions. This study suggests that domain-general questions that vary in CD (low and high) are differentially related to children’s math and language abilities, which can inform the ways in which parents engage in early learning opportunities with their children.

成人问题的认知复杂性，特别是在共享书籍阅读过程中，有助于儿童语言技能的发展。问题可以被描述为具有低认知需求（CD；例如，标记、匹配）或高认知需求（例如，比较、预测）。人们对不同类型的父母提问与孩子数学能力之间的关系知之甚少。目前的研究调查了父母在三项结构化活动中向 4 岁孩子提出的低 CD 和高 CD 以及特定领域数学问题的数量，以及这些问题的频率与孩子同时进行的数学和语言技能的关系。观察到亲子二人组 ( n = 121) 与图画书、杂货店玩具和拼图互动约 5 分钟，孩子们完成了数学和空间评估。尽管父母提出问题的频率与孩子的成绩无关，但在控制了父母的话语、孩子的话语、孩子的年龄和语言能力后，父母对高CD问题的使用与孩子的空间技能、标准化数学成绩和词汇技能有关。家庭社会经济地位。然而，特定领域的数学问题与家长提出的总问题之外的任何孩子的成绩都没有关系。这项研究表明，CD 中不同的领域一般问题（低和高）与儿童的数学和语言能力有不同的相关性，这可以告诉父母与孩子一起参与早期学习机会的方式。