Contributions of linguistic, quantitative, and spatial attention skills to young children's math versus reading: Same, different, or both?. Issue 2 (23rd December 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Liu, Kaichun; Zhao, Ningxin; Huang, Tong; He, Wei; Xu, Lan; Chi, Xia; Yang, Xiujie
• Is Part Of: Infant and child development. Volume 32:Issue 2(2023)
• Page Start: n/a
• Page End: n/a
• Publication Date: 2022-12-23
• Subjects: kindergarteners -- linguistic skills -- math -- quantitative knowledge -- reading; Child development -- Periodicals; Child psychology -- Periodicals; Parenting -- Periodicals; Child rearing -- Periodicals; 155.405
• DOI: 10.1002/icd.2392
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1522-7227

Abstract

Abstract: The study used Bayesian and Frequentist methods to investigate whether the roles of linguistic, quantitative, and spatial attention skills are distinct in children's acquisition of reading and math. A sample of 175 Chinese kindergarteners was tested with measures of linguistic skills (phonological awareness and phonological memory), quantitative knowledge (number line task, symbolic digit comparison, and non‐symbolic number estimation), spatial attention skills (visual span, mental rotation, and visual search), word reading, and calculation. After statistically controlling for age and nonverbal intelligence, phonological awareness and digit comparison performance explained unique variance in both math and reading. Moreover, number line estimation was specifically important for math, while phonological memory was specifically essential for reading. These findings highlight the possibility of developing early screening tools with different cognitive measures for children at risk of learning disabilities in reading and/or math.