Impact of Language Abilities on Exact and Approximate Number Skills Development: Evidence From Children With Specific Language Impairment

Abstract

Purpose -Counting and exact arithmetic rely on language-based representations, whereas number comparison and approximate arithmetic involve approximate quantity-based representations which are available early in life, before the first stages of language acquisition. The objective of this study is to examine the impact of language abilities on the later development of exact and approximate number skills.Method -Twenty-eight 7-to 14-year-old children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) completed exact and approximate number tasks involving quantities presented symbolically and nonsymbolically. They were compared to age-matched (AM) and vocabulary-matched (VM) children.Results -In the exact arithmetic task, the accuracy of children with SLI was lower than that of AM and VM Controls, and related to phonological measures. In the symbolic approximate tasks, children with SLI were less accurate than AM Controls, but the difference vanished when their cognitive skills were considered or when they were compared to younger VM Controls. In the nonsymbolic approximate tasks, children with SLI did not differ significantly from Controls.Further, accuracy in the approximate number tasks was unrelated to language measures.Conclusions -Language impairment is related to reduced exact arithmetic skills whereas it does not intrinsically affect the development of approximate number skills in children with SLI. Keywords:Number skills, Approximate number system, Arithmetic, Language, SLI, Development, Mathematical developmentNumber Skills in Children with SLI 3 Impact of language abilities on exact and approximate number skills development: Evidence from children with specific language impairmentIs the development of number skills determined by language abilities? Children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI), which refer to children with poor language skills in the absence of intellectual disability, hearing impairment, or obvious signs of neurological damage (Leonard, 1998), constitute a population which offers researchers an opportunity to examine this research question. In the present study, we explore the role played by language abilities in the development of number skills by comparing children with SLI with typically-developing peers. Different types of number skillsSince number skills are multi-componential (Dehaene, 1992), answering the question as to whether they are related to language abilities during development necessitates first differentiating between the variety of numerical abilities and their underlying processes. Current theories of number processing (Dehaene, 1992;Dehaene & Cohen, 1995) suggest that approximate and exact number skills should be distinguished. Approximate number skills allow people to manipulate numerical quantities in an approximate fashion, so that they are able to apprehend, for instance, that a set of 56 elements is larger in number than a set of 40 elements and smaller than a set of 70 elements. Approximate number skills are deployed in all numerical activities that require to p...

Dissociation between exact and approximate addition in developmental dyslexia

“…Our results systematically replicated previous findings of a dissociation between exact calculation and approximation (Lemer et al, 2003), and extended the existing data in bilingual students (Spelke & Tsivkin, 2001), brain damaged individuals (Stoodley & Stein, 2013), primitive tribes (Gordon, 2004), infants (McCrink & Wynn, 2004Xu & Spelke, 2000) and specific language impaired individuals (Nys, Content, & Leybaert, 2013) to individuals with reading impairment. The triple-code model assumes numbers are mentally manipulated in an Arabic, verbal or analogical magnitude code depending on the requested mental operation (Dehaene, 1992;Dehaene & Cohen, 1995;Dehaene, Piazza, Pinel, & Cohen, 2003).…”

Severity of specific language impairment predicts delayed development in number skills

“…It could be argued that both language and number skills development are dependent on similar underlying neural and cognitive processes, such as working memory. This in turn raises questions about the nature of working memory resources (e.g., verbal vs. non-verbal) that might be drawn upon in number tasks (see Nys et al, 2013, for an interesting discussion). While these are broader issues than our present concerns, we reiterate that evidence from children with SLI, who show language difficulties in the context of cognition within the normal range, makes an important contribution to the larger inquiry into the underpinnings of number development.…”

“…Children with specific language impairment (SLI) are of particular interest in this context (Fazio, 1996, 1999; Arvedson, 2002; Cowan et al, 2005; Donlan et al, 2007; Kleemans et al, 2011, 2012; Nys et al, 2013). Individuals with SLI fall within the normal range of cognitive abilities, show no evidence of neurological damage or hearing impairment yet, relative to peer norms, have deficits in either or both of expression and comprehension of language (Bishop, 1997; Conti-Ramsden and Durkin, 2011).…”

The Language of Math: Part of the Informational Discourse Continuum

“…These include, but are not limited to, the ability to manipulate math symbols, the use of working memory to identify and store patterns, and the difficulty of combining complex vocabulary, syntax, and math symbols to solve problems (Alt, Arizmendi, & Beal, 2014). Difficulties with math discourse has the potential to impact the ability to solve math word problems, but also in learning exact arithmetic skills such as retrieving math facts from memory and verbal counting (Nys, Content, & Leybaert, 2013). Therefore, it is important that SLPs plan instructional activities to improve functional math outcomes for students with LI.…”