University of Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, LPNC, 38000 Grenoble, France.
Department of Psychology, Fribourg Center for Cognition, University of Fribourg, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2019 Feb;178:104-120. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2018.09.013. Epub 2018 Oct 26.
Many changes occur in general and specific cognitive abilities in children between 5 and 7 years of age, the period coinciding with entrance into formal schooling. The current study focused on the relative contributions of approximate number system (ANS) acuity, mapping precision between numeral symbols and their corresponding magnitude (mapping precision) and working memory (WM) capacity to mathematics achievement in 5- and 7-year-olds. Children's performance was examined in different tasks: nonsymbolic number comparison, number line estimation, working memory, mathematics achievement, and vocabulary. This latter task was used to determine whether predictors were general or specific to mathematics achievement. The results showed that ANS acuity was a significant specific predictor of mathematics achievement only in 5-year-olds, mapping precision was a significant specific predictor at the two ages, and WM was a significant general predictor only in 7-year-olds. These findings suggest that a general cognitive ability, especially WM, becomes a stronger predictor of mathematics achievement after entrance into formal schooling, whereas ANS acuity, a specific cognitive ability, loses predictive power. Moreover, mediation analyses showed that mapping precision was a partial mediator of the relation between ANS acuity and mathematics achievement in 5-year-olds but not in 7-year-olds. Conversely, in 7-year-olds but not in 5-year-olds, WM fully mediated the relation between ANS acuity and mathematics achievement. These results showed that between 5 and 7 years of age, the period of transition into formal mathematical learning, important changes occurred in the relative weights of different predictors of mathematics achievement.
5 至 7 岁儿童的一般认知能力和特定认知能力会发生许多变化，这一时期恰逢入学接受正规教育。本研究重点关注近似数量系统 (ANS) 敏锐度、数字符号与其对应大小之间的映射精度 (映射精度) 和工作记忆 (WM) 能力对 5 岁和 7 岁儿童数学成绩的相对贡献。通过不同的任务来检验儿童的表现：非符号数量比较、数字线估计、工作记忆、数学成绩和词汇量。后者用于确定预测因素是一般的还是特定于数学成绩的。结果表明，在 5 岁儿童中，ANS 敏锐度是数学成绩的唯一显著特定预测因素，在两个年龄组中，映射精度都是显著的特定预测因素，而 WM 只是在 7 岁儿童中是唯一的显著一般预测因素。这些发现表明，一种一般认知能力，尤其是 WM，在入学接受正规教育后，成为数学成绩的更强预测因素，而特定认知能力，如 ANS 敏锐度，失去了预测能力。此外，中介分析表明，在 5 岁儿童中，映射精度是 ANS 敏锐度与数学成绩之间关系的部分中介，但在 7 岁儿童中则不是。相反，在 7 岁儿童中，WM 完全介导了 ANS 敏锐度与数学成绩之间的关系，而在 5 岁儿童中则不是。这些结果表明，在 5 岁至 7 岁之间，进入正规数学学习的过渡时期，数学成绩的不同预测因素的相对权重发生了重要变化。
