Children’s Arithmetic Development

Göbel, Silke M.; Watson, Sarah E.; Lervåg, Arne; Hulme, Charles

doi:10.1177/0956797613516471

Cited by 182 publications

(112 citation statements)

References 28 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…With the exception of a small subset of our analyses (ANS acuity in Year 0 and Linear r 2 in Years 2 and 3), we found little evidence that our ANS and estimation measures uniquely predicted math outcomes when controlling for other cognitive abilities. This finding supports the conclusion that the relation between ANS acuity and symbolic math performance is often weakest in the early elementary school years (Fazio et al, 2014), and with work showing that this relationship may be mediated by other, non-ANS-related, factors (e.g., Gilmore et al, 2013;Göbel et al, 2014;Holloway & Ansari, 2009). …”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Intensive math training does not affect approximate number acuity: Evidence from a three-year longitudinal curriculum intervention

Sullivan

Frank

Barner³

2016

J. Numer. Cogn.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Does nonverbal, approximate number acuity predict mathematics performance? Some studies report a correlation between acuity of representations in the Approximate Number System (ANS) and early math achievement, while others do not. Few previous reports have addressed (1) whether reported correlations remain when other domain-general capacities are considered, and (2) whether such correlations are causal. In the present study, we addressed both questions using a large (N = 204) 3-year longitudinal dataset from a successful math intervention, which included a wide array of non-numerical cognitive tasks. While we replicated past work finding correlations between approximate number acuity and math success, these correlations were very small when other domain-general capacities were considered. Also, we found no evidence that changes to math performance induced changes to approximate number acuity, militating against one class of causal accounts.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Intensive math training does not affect approximate number acuity: Evidence from a three-year longitudinal curriculum intervention

Sullivan

Frank

Barner³

2016

J. Numer. Cogn.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…With regard to preschool children, Mussolin, Nys, Content, and Leybaert (2014) showed that the ability to recognize, name and compare the magnitude of Arabic digits predicts individual differences in the ability to compare the magnitude of non-symbolic numbers (sets of train wagons), but not vice versa. Consistent with these results, Göbel et al (2014) found the ability to identify Arabic digits (mapping number symbols to number words) at school entry was a strong predictor of growth in arithmetic skills across the following school year.…”

supporting

confidence: 61%

The Development of Arabic Digit Knowledge in 4- to 7-Year-Old Children

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent studies indicate that Arabic digit knowledge rather than non-symbolic number knowledge is a key foundation for arithmetic proficiency at the start of a child's mathematical career. We document the developmental trajectory of 4-to 7-year-olds' proficiency in accessing magnitude information from Arabic digits in five tasks differing in magnitude manipulation requirements. Results showed that children from 5 years onwards accessed magnitude information implicitly and explicitly, but that 5-year-olds failed to access magnitude information explicitly when numerical magnitude was contrasted with physical magnitude. Performance across tasks revealed a clear developmental trajectory: children traverse from first knowing the cardinal values of number words to recognizing Arabic digits to knowing their cardinal values and, concurrently, their ordinal position. Correlational analyses showed a strong within-child consistency, demonstrating that this pattern is not only reflected in group differences but also in individual performance.

show abstract

“…show a zero-order correlation with symbolic tasks (e.g., symbolic arithmetic), this relation is often completely accounted for by a comparable symbolic task (e.g., numeral comparison) (for empirical results, see, e.g., Göbel et al, 2014;Lyons et al, 2014; for a recent meta-analysis and review, see, respectively, Schneider et al, 2016;Merkley & Ansari, 2016). In other words, symbolic numerical tasks tend to be more strongly related to one another than to nonsymbolic numerical tasks.…”

Section: Reconciling Current Results With Previous Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Symbolic number skills predict growth in nonsymbolic number skills in kindergarteners.

Lyons

Bugden

Zheng³

et al. 2018

Developmental Psychology

111

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There is currently considerable discussion about the relative influences of evolutionary and cultural factors in the development of early numerical skills. In particular, there has been substantial debate and study of the relationship between approximate, nonverbal (approximate magnitude system, AMS) and exact, symbolic (symbolic number system, SNS) representations of number. Here we examined several hypotheses concerning whether, in the earliest stages of formal education, AMS abilities predict growth in SNS abilities, or the other way around. In addition to tasks involving symbolic (Arabic numerals) and non-symbolic (dot arrays) number comparisons, we also tested children's ability to translate between the two systems (i.e., mixed-format comparison). Our data included a sample of 539 Kindergarten children (mean=5.17yrs, SD=0.29yrs), with AMS, SNS and mixed comparison skills assessed at the beginning and end of the academic year. In this way, we provide, to the best of our knowledge, the most comprehensive test to date of the direction of influence between the AMS and SNS in early formal schooling. Results were more consistent with the view that SNS abilities at the beginning of Kindergarten lay the foundation for improvement in both AMS abilities and the ability to translate between the two systems. Importantly, we found no evidence to support the reverse. We conclude that, once one acquires a very basic grasp of exact number symbols, it is this understanding of exact number (and perhaps repeated practice therewith) that facilitates growth in the AMS. Though the precise mechanism remains to be understood, these data challenge the widely held view that the AMS scaffolds the acquisition of the SNS.

show abstract

Children’s Arithmetic Development

Cited by 182 publications

References 28 publications

Intensive math training does not affect approximate number acuity: Evidence from a three-year longitudinal curriculum intervention

Intensive math training does not affect approximate number acuity: Evidence from a three-year longitudinal curriculum intervention

The Development of Arabic Digit Knowledge in 4- to 7-Year-Old Children

Symbolic number skills predict growth in nonsymbolic number skills in kindergarteners.

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About