The Contribution of Executive Functions to Emergent Mathematic Skills in Preschool Children

By Kimberly Andrews Espy, Melanie M McDiarmid, M. Cwik, M. Stalets, Arlena Hamby, T. Senn. Developmental Neuropsychology, 2004

689 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Mathematical ability is related to both activation of the prefrontal cortex in neuroimaging studies of adults and to executive functions in school-age children. The purpose of this study was to determine whether executive functions were related to emergent mathematical proficiency in preschool children. Preschool children (N = 96) were administered an executive function battery that was reduced empirically to working memory (WM), inhibitory control (IC), and shifting abilities by calculating composite scores derived from principal component analysis. Both WM and IC predicted early arithmetic competency, with the observed relations robust after controlling statistically for child age, maternal education, and child vocabulary. Only IC accounted for unique variance in mathematical skills, after the contribution of other executive functions were controlled statistically as well. Specific executive functions are related to emergent mathematical proficiency in this age range. Longitudinal studies using structural equation modeling are necessary to better characterize these ontogenetic relations.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Statistics and Probability

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2525b7dfe2d94def9ecc1f9c6575fb52d9bccfa3

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Developmental and Educational Psychology

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

In Statistics and Probability

Citations in the corpus

Relating developments in children's counterfactual thinking and executive functions (2009, background): “These “control” processes undergo substantial development at around the same time as children move from making realist errors on the counterfactual tasks described above (eg, Espy, McDiarmid, Cwik, Stalets, Hamby, & Senn, 2004 ).”
Commonalities and Differences in the Research on Children’s Effortful Control and Executive Function: A Call for an Integrated Model of Self‐Regulation (2012, background): “, 2010) EF has been positively related to academic achievement and school readiness (e.g., Blair, 2002; Blair, Granger, & Razza, 2005; Blair & Razza, 2007; Bull & Scerif, 2001; Espy et al., 2004)”
Relating effortful control, executive function, and false belief understanding to emerging math and literacy ability in kindergarten. (2007, background): “The relation between inhibitory control and mathematics ability reported here with preschoolers from low-income homes is consistent with prior work in preschoolers from typical income homes in which the inhibitory control but not the attentionshifting aspect of executive function was related to math”
The role of cognitive inhibition in different components of arithmetic (2015, background): “However, Espy et al. (2004) found that inhibition did predict mathematics even after controlling for both working memory and shifting skills.”
A structured observation of behavioral self-regulation and its contribution to kindergarten outcomes. (2009, methodology): “Thus, the cognitive and behavioral skills required by the HTKS, such as working memory, may be especially important for developing mathematics skills as measured by the Applied Problems subscale (Espy et al., 2004).”
A structural model of algebra achievement: computational fluency and spatial visualisation as mediators of the effect of working memory on algebra achievement (2009, neutral): “…problem-solving tasks among children (Bull & Johnston, 1997; Bull, Johnston, & Roy, 1999; Bull & Scerif, 2001; Demetriou, Christou, Spanoudis, & Platsidou, 2002; Espy et al., 2004; Gathercole, Pickering, Knight, & Stegmann, 2004; Jarvis & Gathercole, 2003; Lee, Ng, Ng, & Lim, 2004; Lehto, 1995).”
Executive functions and school readiness intervention: Impact, moderation, and mediation in the Head Start REDI program (2008, background): “This may be particularly true for early mathematical ability, as several studies have shown predictive relations between working memory, inhibitory control, and attention shifting measures of EF and math skill acquisition in preschool and the early elementary grades (Blair & Razza, 2007; Bull & Scer”
Emotion and Cognition Processes in Preschool Children (2008, background): “Executive function skills have been linked to literacy and mathematical reasoning in young children ( Espy, McDiarmid, Cwik, Stalets, Hamby, & Senn, 2004; Gathercole, Brown, & Pickering, 2003).”
Short-Term Memory, Working Memory, and Executive Functioning in Preschoolers: Longitudinal Predictors of Mathematical Achievement at Age 7 Years (2008, background): “These studies show that in young preschool children (Espy et al., 2004), and in children aged around 7 (Bull & Scerif, 2001) and 11 years (St Clair-Thompson & Gathercole, 2006) inhibitory skills are predictive of mathematics ability, although the relationship may be less clear cut in older children ”
Skills underlying mathematics: The role of executive function in the development of mathematics proficiency (2014, neutral): “…that inhibitory control abilities do predict performance in mathematics (Brock, Rimm- Kaufman, Nathanson, & Grimm, 2009; Bull & Scerif, 2001; Espy et al., 2004; Gilmore et al., 2013; Kroesbergen et al., 2009; Lee et al., 2010; St Clair-Thompson & Gathercole, 2006; Thorell, 2007; but see…”
Early Childhood Memory and Attention as Predictors of Academic Growth Trajectories. (2014, background): “…achievement, phonological processing, shortterm memory, and inhibition (Swanson & Beebe-Frankenberger, 2004); reading, IQ, perseveration, and inhibition efficiency (Bull & Scerif, 2001); maternal education and child vocabulary (Espy et al., 2004); and reading, age, and IQ (Andersson, 2007).”