Poster #86 - Relations Between Preschoolers’ Mathematical Language Understanding and Specific Numeracy Skills

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

Mathematical language understanding is children’s understanding of key words in mathematics, including quantitative words such as “more” and “less” (Barner, Chow, & Yang, 2009) and spatial words such as “before” and “after” (Pruden, Levine, & Huttenlocher, 2011). Understanding of mathematical language is critical for numeracy skill development (Purpura & Logan, 2015; Purpura & Reid, 2016; Toll & Van Luit, 2014a, 2014b). However, prior research has focused exclusively on relations between mathematical language and numeracy skills, broadly measured. Just as cognitive skills such as working memory capacity and response inhibition may be differentially related to various early mathematics skills (Purpura, Schmitt, & Ganley, 2017), children’s understanding of mathematical language may be differentially related to specific early numeracy skills. Thus, the aim of the current study was to examine more targeted relations between preschoolers’ mathematical language and specific numeracy skills (e.g., cardinality, numeral comparison), above and beyond general language.

Participants included 124 preschoolers recruited from 18 public and private preschools serving families with a range of socioeconomic backgrounds. Children (46% female) ranged in age from 3.52 to 6.03 years old (M = 4.78 years, SD = 0.53). Children were assessed on a battery of early numeracy skills and mathematical language, as well as expressive vocabulary. Mixed-effects regression models were conducted separately predicting each numeracy skill, with school as a random effect and age, gender, and parental education as fixed effects covariates.

Results indicated that mathematical language was significantly related to most numeracy skills, including verbal counting, one-to-one correspondence, numeral identification, cardinality, comparisons of sets and/or numerals, ordering numerals, and story problems. As hypothesized, mathematical language was not significantly related to either subitizing or formal addition, as these skills are independent of general language ability. Contrary to expectations, with the exception of set comparison and story problems, general language ability was not significantly related to any proposed numeracy skills. Importantly, mathematical language was generally more proximal to each of the proposed numeracy skills than was general language.

The current study provides key insight for future research on assessment and intervention development. Specifically, the use of assessments of mathematical language, as opposed to general language measures, may lead to more precise identification of later risk for mathematics difficulties. Given the importance of school-entry mathematics understanding for later achievement (Duncan et al., 2007; Jordan, Kaplan, Ramineni, & Locuniak, 2009), improved identification of children at risk for difficulties before these difficulties become manifest is a critical focus for future research. Beyond implications for assessment, results suggest that incorporation of scaffolding for the mathematical language demands within various activities may be an avenue for improving the effectiveness of early numeracy interventions.

Authors

• Caroline Byrd Hornburg, Purdue University
  Presenting Author

• Sara Schmitt, Purdue University
  Non-Presenting Author

• David Purpura, Purdue University
  Non-Presenting Author