Context, Conversations, and Calculations: Parental Elaborative Language, Home Numeracy Environment, and Math Achievement

• In Event: Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Topic - Cognitive Processes

Abstract

A consideration of the socialization of memory in the context of parent-child conversations has illustrated the importance of parents’ elaborative language style (e.g., the use of wh- questions, associations, metamemory information) for the development of children’s autobiographical and deliberate memory skills. These supportive and scaffolded interactions between mothers and their children support children’s developing abilities to talk about previously experienced events (Fivush et al., 2006) as well as children’s later strategic efforts in the context of deliberate memory tasks (Langley et al., 2017). Moreover, the effects of this language may extend beyond domain-general skills, such as memory, to include domain-specific performance, such as mathematics. For example, research has illustrated that parents’ use of elaborative and metamemory talk in conversations about past events is associated with children’s ability to accurately and effectively solve math problems (Hudson et al., 2018; Wiley et al., 2019). Additionally, variations in children’s mathematics achievement have also been associated with families’ home numeracy environment, indexed by activities with numeracy components such as flash cards, board games, and cooking (LeFevre et al., 2009; Susperreguy et al., 2020). This proposal outlines the first attempt to examine these two factors simultaneously in order to determine if parents’ elaborative language adds to the prediction of children’s mathematical skill, above and beyond the impact of the home numeracy environment.
A sample of 51 kindergarteners (age range=4.93-6.43 years, 26 female) from an ongoing longitudinal study was assessed at multiple timepoints with a broad cognitive battery that included measures of children’s memory performance and academic achievement. Children also completed a reminiscing task with a parent about two shared events in which parents’ use of elaborations was calculated and parents completed the Home Numeracy Environment Questionnaire. In this poster we will present findings concerning multiple measures of children’s performance on a standardized assessment of mathematics achievement (WJ-IV; Schrank et al., 2014) at both kindergarten entry (Timepoint 1) and the end of the school year (Timepoint 2), as a function of the home numeracy environment in their home and their parents’ elaborative reminiscing language. Descriptive statistics can be found in Table 1.
Multiple measures will be considered, but for this proposal, we focus on exemplar findings for children’s fluency skills at the beginning and the end of kindergarten. As can be seen in Table 2, a series of regressions revealed that parents’ elaborative language contributed significantly – above and beyond their home numeracy environment – to children’s math fluency skills at both kindergarten entry (p=.02) and at the conclusion of the school year (p=.05). Similar patterns that highlight the importance of parents’ elaborative style above and beyond the home numeracy environment are also observed in other mathematics outcomes. These and additional findings will be discussed involving the relevance of parents’ elaborative style and home numeracy environment for children’s mathematics performance in the early elementary years.

Authors

• Keadija C. Wiley, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  Presenting Author

• Amber Elizabeth Westover, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
  Non-Presenting Author

• Abigail Ward Jarvis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  Non-Presenting Author

• KellyAnn Bonanno, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  Non-Presenting Author

• Olivia K. Cook, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
  Non-Presenting Author

• Peter A Ornstein, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jennifer L Coffman, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
  Non-Presenting Author