By the preschool age, children exhibit a diversity of prosocial behaviors that include both sharing resources and helping others. Though recent work has theorized that these prosocial behaviors are differentiated by distinct ages of emergence, developmental trajectories and underlying mechanisms, the experimental evidence in support of the last…

Children's early accuracy on place value (PV) tasks longitudinally predicts their later multidigit calculation skills. However, another window into children's emerging base-ten concepts is the pattern of errors -- "smart errors" -- they exhibit on these measures. Past research has speculated that these smart errors -- similar to invented…

Number line estimation (NLE) tasks are widely used to investigate numerical cognition, learning, and development, and as an instructional tool. Interpretation of these tasks generally involves an implicit expectation that responses are driven by the overall magnitudes of target numerals, in the sense that the particular digits conveying those…

Previous research has demonstrated a link between children's ability to name canonical finger configurations and their mathematical abilities. This study aimed to investigate the nature of this association, specifically exploring whether the relationship is skill and handshape specific and identifying the underlying mechanisms involved.…

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…

Math anxiety negatively predicts young children's math achievement. While some researchers have suggested that math anxiety may stem from poor math ability, others have argued that math anxiety occurs at all levels of math ability. An important question is whether math anxiety predicts math achievement over and above foundational math skills. We…

Numerical comparison is a primary measure of the acuity of children's approximate number system. Approximate number system acuity is associated with key developmental outcomes such as symbolic number skill, standardized test scores, and even employment outcomes (Halberda, Mazzocco, & Feigenson, 2008; Parsons & Bynner, 1997). We examined…

Two experiments examined whether concrete models support place value learning. In Experiment 1 (N = 149), 7-year-olds were trained with either a) symbols alone or b) symbols and base-10 blocks. Children in both groups showed significant growth overall, but there were specific effects favoring one training type over another. Symbols-only training…

A crucial component of numerical understanding is one's ability to abstract numerical properties regardless of varying perceptual attributes. Evidence from numerical match-to-sample tasks suggests that children find it difficult to match sets based on number in the face of varying perceptual attributes, yet it is unclear whether these findings are…

The present study examined whether and how socioeconomic status (SES) predicts school achievement in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) using structural equation modeling and data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Child Care and Youth Development. The present inquiry addresses gaps in…

This study investigated the roles of different executive function (EF) components (inhibition, shifting, and working memory) in 2-step arithmetic word problem solving. A sample of 139 children aged 8 years old and regularly attending the 3rd grade of primary school were tested on 6 EF tasks measuring different EF components, a reading task and a…

Although high-quality early educational environments are thought to be related to the growth of children's skills in mathematics, relatively little is known about specific aspects of classroom instruction that may promote these abilities. Data from a longitudinal investigation were used to investigate associations between teachers' language while…

We tested whether mental rotation training improved math performance in 6- to 8-year-olds. Children were pretested on a range of number and math skills. Then one group received a single session of mental rotation training using an object completion task that had previously improved spatial ability in children this age (Ehrlich, Levine, &…

The principle of "inversion," that a + b - b "must" equal a, is a fundamental property of arithmetic, but many children fail to apply it in symbolic contexts through 10 years of age. We explore three hypotheses relating to the use of inversion that stem from a model proposed by Siegler and Araya (2005). Hypothesis 1 is that…

The principle of inversion--that a + b - b must equal a--requires a sensitivity to the relation between addition and subtraction that is critical for understanding arithmetic. Use of inversion, albeit inconsistent, has been observed in school-age children, but when use of a computational shortcut based on inversion emerges and how awareness of the…