Scalise Nicole R, Daubert Emily N, Ramani Geetha B
Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
J Numer Cogn. 2017;3(3):559-581. doi: 10.5964/jnc.v3i3.72. Epub 2018 Jan 30.
Preschoolers from low-income households lag behind preschoolers from middle-income households on numerical skills that underlie later mathematics achievement. However, it is unknown whether these gaps exist on parallel measures of symbolic and non-symbolic numerical skills. Experiment 1 indicated preschoolers from low-income backgrounds were less accurate than peers from middle-income backgrounds on a measure of symbolic magnitude comparison, but they performed equivalently on a measure of non-symbolic magnitude comparison. This suggests activities linking non-symbolic and symbolic number representations may be used to support children's numerical knowledge. Experiment 2 randomly assigned low-income preschoolers ( = 4.7 years) to play either a numerical magnitude comparison or a numerical matching card game across four 15 min sessions over a 3-week period. The magnitude comparison card game led to significant improvements in participants' symbolic magnitude comparison skills in an immediate posttest assessment. Following the intervention, low-income participants performed equivalently to an age- and gender-matched sample of middle-income preschoolers in symbolic magnitude comparison. These results suggest a brief intervention that combines non-symbolic and symbolic magnitude representations can support low-income preschoolers' early numerical knowledge.
来自低收入家庭的学龄前儿童在作为后期数学成绩基础的数字技能方面落后于来自中等收入家庭的学龄前儿童。然而，尚不清楚这些差距在符号和非符号数字技能的平行测量中是否存在。实验1表明，来自低收入背景的学龄前儿童在符号大小比较测量上比来自中等收入背景的同龄人准确性更低，但他们在非符号大小比较测量上表现相当。这表明将非符号和符号数字表征联系起来的活动可能用于支持儿童的数字知识。实验2将低收入学龄前儿童（平均年龄4.7岁）随机分配，在为期3周的时间里，分四个15分钟的时段玩数字大小比较或数字匹配纸牌游戏。在即时后测评估中，大小比较纸牌游戏使参与者的符号大小比较技能有了显著提高。干预后，低收入参与者在符号大小比较方面的表现与年龄和性别匹配的中等收入学龄前儿童样本相当。这些结果表明，结合非符号和符号大小表征的简短干预可以支持低收入学龄前儿童的早期数字知识。
