Department of Psychology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1S 5B6.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2013 Feb;114(2):243-61. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2012.10.005. Epub 2012 Nov 17.
We examined the role of executive attention, which encompasses the common aspects of executive function and executive working memory, in children's acquisition of two aspects of mathematical skill: (a) knowledge of the number system (e.g., place value) and of arithmetic procedures (e.g., multi-digit addition) and (b) arithmetic fluency (i.e., speed of solutions to simple equations such as 3+4 and 8-5). Children in Grades 2 and 3 (N=157) completed executive attention and mathematical tasks. They repeated the mathematical tasks 1 year later. We used structural equation modeling to examine the relations between executive attention and (a) concurrent measures of mathematical knowledge and arithmetic fluency and (b) growth in performance on these measures 1 year later. Executive attention was concurrently predictive of both knowledge and fluency but predicted growth in performance only for fluency. A composite language measure predicted growth in knowledge from Grade 2 to Grade 3. The results support an important role for executive attention in children's acquisition of novel procedures and the development of automatic access to arithmetic facts.
我们研究了执行注意的作用，它包含了执行功能和执行工作记忆的共同方面，在儿童获得数学技能的两个方面：（a）对数字系统（例如，位置值）和算术过程（例如，多位加法）的知识，以及（b）算术流畅性（即，解决简单方程的速度，例如 3+4 和 8-5）。二年级和三年级的儿童（N=157）完成了执行注意和数学任务。他们在 1 年后重复了这些数学任务。我们使用结构方程模型来检验执行注意与（a）同时测量的数学知识和算术流畅性之间的关系，以及（b）1 年后这些测量的表现增长之间的关系。执行注意与知识和流畅性均呈正相关，但仅对流畅性预测表现的增长。综合语言测量预测了从二年级到三年级知识的增长。结果支持执行注意在儿童获得新程序和发展自动获取算术事实方面的重要作用。
