No abstract

A sample (n=48) of eight-year-olds with specific language impairments is compared with age-matched (n=55) and language matched controls (n=55) on a range of tasks designed to test the interdependence of language and mathematical development. Performance across tasks varies substantially in the SLI group, showing profound deficits in production of the count word sequence and basic calculation and significant deficits in understanding of the place-value principle in Hindu-Arabic notation. Only in understanding of arithmetic principles does SLI performance approximate that of age-matched-controls, indicating that principled understanding can develop even where number sequence production and other aspects of number processing are severely compromised.

Are thoughts impossible without the words to express them? It has been claimed that this is the case for thoughts about numbers: Children cannot have the concept of exact numbers until they know the words for them, and adults in cultures whose languages lack a counting vocabulary similarly cannot possess these concepts. Here, using classical methods of developmental psychology, we show that children who are monolingual speakers of two Australian languages with very restricted number vocabularies possess the same numerical concepts as a comparable group of Englishspeaking indigenous Australian children.cognitive development ͉ linguistic determinism ͉ mathematical cognition ͉ number concepts

The number skills of groups of 7 to 9 year old children with specific language impairment (SLI) attending mainstream or special schools are compared with an age and nonverbal reasoning matched group (AC), and a younger group matched on oral language comprehension. The SLI groups performed below the AC group on every skill. They also showed lower working memory functioning and had received lower levels of instruction.Nonverbal reasoning, working memory functioning, language comprehension, and instruction accounted for individual variation in number skills to differing extents depending on the skill.These factors did not explain the differences between SLI and AC groups on most skills.