Parental math talk is not uniformly beneficial for young children: The moderating role of inhibitory control

• In Event: Relations between parent and teacher factors and children’s school readiness skills

Abstract

Children’s early math skills vary considerably and are related to their later academic achievement (Duncan et al., 2007; Jordan et al., 2006). Recent work on the development of math abilities has stressed the importance of considering child-level propensities that are associated with children’s ability to learn and environmental opportunities that children are presented with in the home or school (Byrnes, 2020). In particular, past work has found that children’s own inhibitory control is strongly linked to their early math performance (Espy et al., 2004). Additionally, parental math engagement through math talk has also been found to be related to children’s early math performance (Levine et al., 2010; Elliott et al., 2017). However, no studies have explored the interaction between these propensity and opportunity factors in predicting early mathematics. Here, we examined whether children’s propensity factors may moderate the association between parental math engagement and children’s math performance. Specifically, we investigated whether some children may benefit from parental math input more than others based on their inhibitory control. Parental math input via number talk during a 10-minute naturalistic free play session in the lab was measured in 123 children (Mage = 3.9 years; 59 girls) and one of their parents. We found that children’s inhibitory control, measured using the Day-Night Stroop task (Gerstadt et al., 1994), significantly predicted their math achievement in the Test of Early Mathematics Ability (Ginsburg & Baroody, 2003). Meanwhile, there was no main effect of parental number talk on math skills. Critically, however, children’s inhibitory control significantly moderated the effect of parental number talk on children’s math achievement, β = .19, p = .039, above and beyond the effects of parents’ overall talk, parents’ math ability, children’s ability to follow directions, children’s vocabulary, children’s age and children’s gender (see Figure 1). Specifically, high levels of parent number talk were associated with higher math achievement only among children with higher inhibitory control. This association was not seen in children with lower inhibitory control. Further, this moderation effect was domain-specific: the interaction between inhibitory control and parent number talk did not predict children’s vocabulary, nor was it significant when parents’ overall talk was used as the measure of parental input. Thus, children may differentially benefit from parental math engagement depending on their cognitive abilities and this association is specific to parental talk about numbers and children’s math abilities.

Authors

• Alex M. Silver, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author

• Leanne Elliott, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Melissa E Libertus, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author