ERIC Number: EJ1223573
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019
Pages: 20
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1524-8372
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Math and Memory in Bilingual Preschoolers: The Relations between Bilingualism, Working Memory, and Numerical Knowledge
Daubert, Emily N.; Ramani, Geetha B.
Journal of Cognition and Development, v20 n3 p314-333 2019
Bilingual children exhibit enhanced working memory (WM) skill relative to monolingual children, which could have implications for early mathematics development. Competency in mathematics is supported by conceptual and procedural mathematical knowledge, and numerical knowledge is in turn supported by underlying cognitive processes such as WM. Building on this evidence, we investigated whether bilingual preschoolers demonstrated, relative to monolingual peers, enhanced performance on WM and greater numerical knowledge. We examined the role of WM in numerical understanding for both monolingual and bilingual children. Participants were 4- and 5-year old children (74) recruited from preschools serving families from a range of socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic backgrounds. Participants completed a nonverbal WM task and a range of numerical-knowledge measures, specifically numeral identification, addition, symbolic magnitude comparison, and nonsymbolic magnitude comparison tasks. Results revealed that bilingual children outperformed monolingual peers on WM even after controlling for age and socioeconomic status (SES). Bilingual children also demonstrated greater performance on addition and numeral identification tasks. For all tasks except numeral identification, WM predicted children's performance on numerical knowledge measures. We discuss results in terms of the possible unique cognitive and academic advantages bilingual children may have.
Descriptors: Mathematics Skills, Short Term Memory, Bilingual Students, Preschool Children, Numeracy, Knowledge Level, Mathematics Tests, Predictor Variables, Arithmetic, Mathematics Achievement
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: National Institutes of Health (DHHS)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: 1T32HD075429
Author Affiliations: N/A