Processes That Underlie Mathematical Precociousness in Young Emergent Bilingual Children

• In Event: STEM Instruction and Interventions Across Contexts

Abstract

Processes that underlie precocious, average, and children with low math computation were examined in emergent bilingual children. A battery of domain-specific (estimation, magnitude judgment, word problems), vocabulary/reading, phonological storage [STM, naming speed], and executive processing (inhibition, working memory), in both Spanish and English, were administered to elementary school children whose first language is Spanish. Multi-level logistic modeling showed that the log-odds of identifying precocious children were significantly related to performance on English measures of magnitude judgment, word problem solving, naming speed, and Spanish measures of WM The results support the notion that domain-specific and domain-general processes are important predictors of children’s mathematical precociousness and were found to operate independently of individual differences in reading, vocabulary, phonological processing, and inhibition.

Authors

• Lee Swanson, University of California - Riverside
  Presenting Author

• Jennifer Kong, University of New Mexico
  Non-Presenting Author

• Catherine Lussier, University of California - Riverside
  Non-Presenting Author