Poster #37 - Spontaneous Focusing on Arabic Number Symbols Relates to Numerical Abilities and Mathematics Achievement in 4-5-year-olds

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Cognitive Processes

Integrative Statement

A large body of research indicates that children’s early informal mathematical experiences are key for their later mathematics learning and success in school (Blevins-Knabe, 2016). Hannula and Lehtinen (2005), for instance, found that young children who spontaneously focus their attention on numerosity in their everyday environment (SFON) show more advanced mathematical skills than children who do not focus on numerosity.
Rathé and colleagues (2018) recently proposed there is a similar but separate tendency of spontaneously focusing on Arabic number symbols (SFONS), which can be distinguished within children’s mathematical competence, similar to children’s sensitivity to environmental print (Neumann et al., 2013). They showed in a recent exploratory cross-sectional study that toddlers showed large individual differences in their tendency to spontaneously focus on Arabic number symbols in pictures they had to describe. SFONS was associated with numerical abilities, such as Arabic numeral knowledge, and teacher ratings of mathematical competence. However, the sample size of this study was small and the measurement of mathematical competence was limited to the collection of teacher ratings.
Addressing these limitations, we set up a new longitudinal study to further investigate the validity of the SFONS construct. We also examined the associations between SFONS, SFON, numerical abilities, and mathematics achievement. This was done with a broader set of numerical tasks and a standardized mathematics achievement test. We also took children’s language ability and non-verbal IQ into account as well as their home environment.
Participants were 159 4-5-year-olds (77 boys, M = 4y5m), who attended non-compulsory kindergarten at a regular basis. Children completed a SFON Picture task, a SFONS Picture task, several numerical tasks (i.e., verbal counting, numeral-number word mapping, number word-quantity mapping, and numeral-quantity mapping), measures of language ability and non-verbal IQ, and a standardized mathematics achievement test. Parental education was determined via a questionnaire. In the two Picture tasks, children were asked to describe as precisely as possible the content of three cartoon pictures showing numerical (i.e., the Arabic number symbol 2,3, or 4 embedded in the situation in the SFONS task and different numerosities in the SFON task) as well as non-numerical information. Children scored SFONS in a trial when they mentioned at least once a correct, incorrect, or non-specific Arabic number symbol. Children scored SFON in a trial when they mentioned at least once an exact numerosity while describing the picture.
Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that a two-factor model, with a separate SFONS and SFON factor provided the best fit to the data, indicating that SFONS constitutes a unique tendency within children’s mathematical competence. Correlation analyses showed no strong correlation between SFONS and SFON. SFONS, but not SFON, was significantly associated with numerical abilities and mathematics achievement (Table 1), replicating the earlier data of Rathé et al. (2018). Extending this latter study, all associations (except for verbal counting) remained significant when SFON and child and family characteristics were taken into account (Table 2). These findings suggest that SFONS is different from SFON and is a unique component of children’s early mathematical development.

Authors

• Sanne Rathé, KU Leuven
  Presenting Author

• Joke Torbeyns, KU Leuven
  Non-Presenting Author

• Bert De Smedt, KU Leuven
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lieven Verschaffel, KU Leuven
  Non-Presenting Author