Poster #38 - Examining Longitudinal Effects of the Home Numeracy Environment and Child Executive Function on Early Numeracy Skills

• In Event: 1-061 - Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Section - Cognitive Processes

Integrative Statement

A growing literature focuses on how parents may influence young children’s mathematics development. Empirical work indicates that children’s math-related experiences with parents in the home environment, also known as the home numeracy environment (HNE), is positively linked with child math achievement (e.g., Berkowitz et al., 2015; Maloney, Ramirez, Gunderson, Levine, & Beilock, 2015; Skwarchuk, 2009), although results are sometimes inconsistent (e.g., Skwarchuk, 2009). Parent and child characteristics may also influence the quality of parent-child math experiences and how these experiences impact child math learning. Illustratively, Skwarchuk (2009) found that parents who engaged in higher quality interactions with children during math activities spent more time on math-relevant, rather than non-math related, activities. The proposed study will examine the association between the home-numeracy environment and child numeracy skills in early childhood, and whether this association is moderated by a particular child characteristic, child executive function.
Research suggests that executive function (EF) relates to concurrent and later numeracy skills (Blair & Razza, 2007; Raghubar, Barnes, & Hecht, 2010). This proposal will test whether effects of early EF on later numeracy skills vary the quality of the home numeracy environment.
To answer these questions, we will use data from a larger pre-K evaluation study where parents income-level qualified them to enroll their child in a pre-K program. The Home Numeracy Environment and child executive function were measured at the start of pre-kindergarten, while child numeracy skills were measured at the end of kindergarten. Parents reported on the frequency of child engagement in basic (4 items) and advanced (4 items) mathematics-specific learning activities ranging from 0 (never) to 3 (a few times per week). Children’s executive function was measured using the Day-Night Stroop Task (Gerstadt, Hong, & Diamond, 1994) and the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders Task (Ponitz et al., 2008), whereas child numeracy skills were measured using two assessments, the Preschool Early Numeracy Skills Screener (Purpura, 2015), and the Applied Problems subtest of the Woodcock-Johnson IV (Schrank, McGrew, Mather, Wendling, & LaForte, 2014).
We found that children’s executive function at the start of pre-kindergarten had a positive effect on children’s numeracy skills at the end of kindergarten (β = .20, t = 2.93, p < .01), but the neither the basic nor advanced home numeracy environment had a direct effect on children’s numeracy skills at the end of kindergarten. Finally, we found a significant moderation effect of the advanced home numeracy environment on the effects of child executive function at the start of pre-kindergarten on children’s numeracy skills over one year later, at the end of kindergarten (β = .17, t = 2.11, p < .05). Simple slope analyses revealed that effects of early executive function were greater for children who experienced moderate (β = .20, t = 2.93, p < .001) or high (β = .30, t = 3.81, p < .001), but not low, levels of the advanced home numeracy environment.
These findings suggest experiencing a high quality home numeracy environment enables higher order, domain general, cognitive processes to influence the development of numeracy abilities.

Authors

• Giulia Alexandra Borriello, Purdue University
  Presenting Author

• Ellen Litkowski, Purdue University
  Non-Presenting Author

• James Elicker, Purdue University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sara Schmitt, Purdue University
  Non-Presenting Author

• David Purpura, Purdue University
  Non-Presenting Author