1,720,960 research outputs found
Intergenerational Features of Math Skills: Symbolic and Non-Symbolic Magnitude Comparison and Written Calculation in Mothers and Children
No full textIn this article, we analyze symbolic and non-symbolic numerical abilities of parents in order to understand whether these are predictors of children’s numerical skills, considering basic symbolic, non-symbolic, and formal math skills (i.e., written calculation). A battery of cognitive and math tasks was administered to a sample of 83 children with established formal school experience (i.e., fourth and fifth grade students), and to their mothers. Correlational and regression analyses were performed. The results evidenced significant relationships between children’s and mothers’ symbolic and math skills, but children’s symbolic comparison skills were the most significant predictor of their math skills. The study suggests that the intergenerational features of math skills play a significant role in children’s numerical development but that children’s math skills ultimately depend mainly on their own numerical processing.
Within an educational perspective, the development of symbolic number skills in children is crucial and might allow the constraints of intergenerational transmission of math skills to be reduced
Home activities and cognitive skills in relation to early literacy and numeracy: testing a multifactorial model in preschoolers
Full text linkThe aim of the present study was to test environmental and cognitive variables as possible cross-domain predictors of early literacy and numeracy skills. One hundred forty-eight preschool children (mean age = 64.36 months ± 3.33) were enrolled in the study. The battery included a home literacy and home numeracy questionnaire, measures and phonological and visuo-spatial working memory, tasks tapping response inhibition, and predictors of literacy (vocabulary, phonological awareness, letter knowledge) and numeracy (magnitude comparison, number knowledge) skills. The structural equation model indicated that verbal working memory and, to a lesser extent, inhibition represented cross-domain predictors, whereas home numeracy activities and visuo-spatial working memory explained additional variance only for early numeracy skills. Implications for parents and educators are discussed
Predictors of Children’s Early Numeracy: Environmental Variables, Intergenerational Pathways, and Children’s Cognitive, Linguistic, and Non-symbolic Number Skills
Full text linkEarly numeracy skills in preschool years have been found to be related to a variety of
different factors, including Approximate Number System (ANS) skills, children’s cognitive
and linguistic skills, and environmental variables such as home numeracy activities.
The present study aimed to analyze the differential role of environmental variables,
intergenerational patterns, children’s cognitive and linguistic skills, and their ANS in
supporting early math skills. The sample included 64 children in their last year of
kindergarten and one parent of each child. Children were administered a battery of
cognitive and linguistic tasks, and a non-symbolic comparison task as a measure of
ANS. Parents were administered similar tasks assessing cognitive skills, math skills, and
ANS skills (estimation and non-symbolic comparison), together with a questionnaire on
home numeracy. Results showed that home numeracy predicted children’s early math
skills better than a number of parent and child variables. Considering children’s skills,
their ability in the non-symbolic magnitude comparison task was the strongest predictor
of early math skills. Results reinforce the importance of the role of home numeracy
activities and children’s ANS skills above that of parents’ math skills
The Relationship of Reading Abilities With the Underlying Cognitive Skills of Math: A Dimensional Approach
Full text linkMath and reading are related, and math problems are often accompanied by problems in reading. In the present study, we used a dimensional approach and we aimed to assess the relationship of reading and math with the cognitive skills assumed to underlie the development of math. The sample included 97 children from 4th and 5th grades of a primary school. Children were administered measures of reading and math, non-verbal IQ, and various underlying cognitive abilities of math (counting, number sense, and number system knowledge). We also included measures of phonological awareness and working memory (WM). Two approaches were undertaken to elucidate the relations of the cognitive skills with math and reading. In the first approach, we examined the unique contributions of math and reading ability, as well as their interaction, to each cognitive ability. In the second approach, the cognitive abilities were taken to predict math and reading. Results from the first set of analyses showed specific effects of math on number sense and number system knowledge, whereas counting was affected by both math and reading. No math-by-reading interactions were observed. In contrast, for phonological awareness, an interaction of math and reading was found. Lower performing children on both math and reading performed disproportionately lower. Results with respect to the second approach confirmed the specific relation of counting, number sense, and number system knowledge to math and the relation of counting to reading but added that each math-related marker contributed independently to math. Following this approach, no unique effects of phonological awareness on math and reading were found. In all, the results show that math is specifically related to counting, number sense, and number system knowledge. The results also highlight what each approach can contribute to an understanding of the relations of the various cognitive correlates with reading and math
Early Literacy and Numeracy Skills in Bilingual Minority Children: Toward a Relative Independence of Linguistic and Numerical Processing
Full text linkMany studies have suggested that the concept of “number” is relatively independent
from linguistic skills, although an increasing number of studies suggest that language
abilities may play a pivotal role in the development of arithmetic skills. The
condition of bilingualism can offer a unique perspective into the role of linguistic
competence in numerical development. The present study was aimed at evaluating
the relationship between language skills and early numeracy through a multilevel
investigation in monolingual and bilingual minority children attending preschool. The
sample included 156 preschool children. Of these, 77 were bilingual minority children
(mean age = 58.27, sd: 5.90), and 79 were monolinguals (mean age = 58.45sd: 6.03).
The study focused on three levels of analysis: group differences in language and number
skills, concurrent linguistic predictors of early numeracy and, finally, profile analysis
of linguistic skills in children with impaired vs. adequate numeracy skills. The results
showed that, apart from the expected differences in linguistic measures, bilinguals
differed from monolinguals in numerical skills with a verbal component, such as semantic
knowledge of digits, but they did not differ in a pure non-verbal component such as
quantity comparison. The multigroup structural equation model indicated that letter
knowledge was a significant predictor of the verbal component of numeracy for both
groups. Phonological awareness was a significant predictor of numeracy skills only in
the monolingual group. Profile analysis showed that children with a selective weakness
in the non-verbal component of numeracy had fully adequate verbal skills. Results from
the present study suggest that only some specific components of language competence
predict numerical processing, although linguistic proficiency may not be a prerequisite
for developing adequate early numeracy skills
Teachers, not parents, are able to predict time processing skills in preschoolers
No full textTime processing difficulties are associated with developmental disorders. Questionnaires for assessing children's sense of time are available from primary school, but we lack valid proxy-report tools for younger children, who are not able to complete self-reports. This study aimed to assess the criterion validity of a questionnaire investigating preschoolers' sense of time from the points of view of their parents and teachers. One hundred seventy preschoolers were included in the sample. Their parents and teachers completed the Sense of Time Questionnaire, and the children were administered time reproduction and time discrimination tasks, both concurrently and 7 months later. The assessment of preschoolers' sense of time reported by teachers, but not by parents, predicted the children's time processing skills both concurrently and longitudinally. The teacher version of the Sense of Time Questionnaire constitutes a valid instrument for assessing and predicting preschoolers' time processing skills and can be used for clinical and research purposes STATEMENT OF CONTRIBUTION: What is already known on this subject? Time processing difficulties are associated with developmental disorders such as ADHD and dyscalculia. Early assessment of time processing skills is important for clinical (e.g., screening) and research purposes. We do not have valid questionnaires for assessing sense of time in young children. What the present study adds? The sense of time ability reported by teachers predicts preschoolers' time processing skills. The sense of time ability reported by parents does not predicts preschoolers' time processing skills. The Sense of Time Questionnaire is a valid instrument for investigating time processing skills of 4-6 aged children
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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