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Interrelations between acuity of the approximate number system and symbolic skills in preschool children
Citation
Muñez, D., Orrantia, J., Sanchez, R., Carreton, V., & Matilla, L. (2024). Interrelations between acuity of the approximate number system and symbolic skills in preschool children. Journal of Cognition and Development. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2024.2384562
Abstract
This study investigates how the approximate number system (ANS) and young children’s symbolic skills jointly develop and interact. Specifically, the study aims at disentangling the directionality of the association between ANS acuity and a wide range of symbolic skills that reflect 4- to 5-year-olds’ symbolic quantitative knowledge (enumeration skills, knowledge of the verbal count sequence, symbolic comparison skills, and single-digit arithmetic). After accounting for individual differences in several domain-general skills (visuospatial working memory, non-verbal reasoning, and phonological processing), path models on longitudinal data collected from 4-year-old childen in Spain (N = 62) over one year revealed that earlier single-digit arithmetic and symbolic magnitude comparison skills predicted changes in ANS acuity over time. No contribution from earlier ANS to improvements in symbolic skills was found. Notably, the strength of the effect of visuospatial working memory on improvements in ANS acuity over time was like that of the auto-regressor – the correlation between measures of ANS acuity across time points. Implications for extant theories on the nature of the associations between ANS and young children’s symbolic skills are drawn.
Date Issued
2024
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Journal
Journal of Cognition and Development
DOI
10.1080/15248372.2024.2384562
Grant ID
PGC2018-100758-B- I00
PGC2018-100758-B-I00
Funding Agency
Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation, and Universities