Mechanisms Underlying The Relationship Between Approximate Number System And Early Mathematics Skills In Preschool Children

Approximate number system(ANS)is the basis of early mathematics skills.A wealth of studies reported a significant positive correlation between ANS and early mathematics skills.Mapping ability,working memory(including phonological loop,visuospatial sketchpad,and inhibition),language ability,and leaning experiences may influence the association between ANS and early mathematics skills.Little research comprehensively explored these factors.The current one-year longitudinal study aimed to investigate how these factors contributed to the associations between ANS and early mathematics skills.A sample of 110 children(58 boys,52 girls)and their parents participated in the study.Children were from middle socioeconomic backgrounds and they were in the second year of kindergarten.They were individually tested twice on the ANS,working memory,language ability,intelligence,mapping ability,and the Test of Early Mathematical Ability-3(TEMA-3).At the meantime,their fathers and mothers completed the questionnaires of home numeracy activities twice.The data of ANS,working memory,and language ability collected at Time 1,and the data of intelligence,mapping ability,and the TEMA-3 collected at Time 2 were used in the current study.The main results are as follows:The study 1 examined if mapping ability was a mediator of the associations between ANS and early mathematics skills.The results showed that the more precise of ANS,the better performance of mapping ability,which in turn resulted in better early mathematics skills.In addition,early mathematics skills include formal and informal mathematics skills.The effects of ANS on formal mathematics skills were fully mediated by mapping ability,and the effects of ANS on informal mathematics skills were partially mediated by mapping ability.The study 2 examined how ANS,working memory and mapping ability jointly contributed to early mathematics skills.The results showed that the effects of inhibition on formal mathematics skills were mediated by mapping ability,but not on informal mathematics skills.However,phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad had no effects on early mathematics skills by mapping ability.Consistent with the results of study 1,in the model for phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad,the effects of ANS on formal mathematics skills were fully mediated by mapping ability,and the effects of ANS on informal mathematics skills were partially mediated by mapping ability.However,in the model for inhibition,the effects of ANS on formal and informal mathematics skills were fully mediated by mapping ability.The study 3 examined how ANS,language ability,and mapping ability have jointly effects on early mathematics skills.When the model only including language ability,the results showed that both of receptive and expressive vocabulary had effects on early mathematics skills through mapping ability.When the model including both of ANS and language ability,the results showed that only ANS had effects on early mathematics skills through mapping ability.The study 4 examined how ANS,home numeracy activities and mapping ability jointly contribute to early mathematics skills.When the model only including home numeracy activities,the results showed that the effects of maternal formal home numeracy activities on formal and informal mathematics skills were mediated by mapping ability,but not maternal informal home numeracy activities and paternal formal and informal home numeracy activities.When the model including both ANS and home numeracy activities,the results showed that both of ANS and maternal formal home numeracy had effects on formal and informal mathematics skills through mapping ability.Moreover,the study 4 made a comparison between the effects of inhibition and maternal home numeracy activities on the model,and results reveled that maternal home numeracy activities had greater effects on the development of early mathematics skills.These results indicated that maternal involvement play a more important role in children's early mathematics skills than paternal involvement.At the meantime,formal home numeracy activities had a more important role in early mathematics skills than informal home numeracy activities.The above-mentioned four studies demonstrate that,first,mapping ability was the mechanism of the relationship between ANS and early mathematics skills.Second,both individual cognitive ability and home environment had effects on early mathematics skills through mapping ability.Moreover,comparing with cognitive ability,home environment played a more important role on early mathematics skills.