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  • Review Article
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Environmental influences on mathematics performance in early childhood

Nature Reviews Psychology volume 1, pages 407–418 (2022)Cite this article

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Abstract

Mathematics skills relate to lifelong career, health and financial outcomes. Individuals’ cognitive abilities predict mathematics performance and there is growing recognition that environmental influences, including differences in culture and variability in mathematics engagement, also affect mathematics performance. In this Review, we summarize evidence indicating that differences between languages, exposure to maths-focused language, socioeconomic status, attitudes and beliefs about mathematics, and engagement with mathematics activities influence young children’s mathematics performance. These influences play out at the community and individual levels. However, research on the role of these environmental influences for foundational number skills, including understanding of number words, is limited. Future research is needed to understand individual differences in the development of early emerging mathematics skills such as number word skills, examining to what extent different types of environmental input are necessary and how children’s cognitive abilities shape the impact of environmental input.

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Fig. 1: Abilities and environmental factors influencing symbolic mathematics performance.
Fig. 2: Typical timeline for emergence of foundational mathematics skills in English-speaking children.
Fig. 3: Average timeline of the number word acquisition process for English-speaking children.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank J. Halberda and J. Iverson for their helpful insights and feedback during the writing of this manuscript. This work was supported by the James S. McDonnell Foundation Scholar Award to M.E.L., by the National Science Foundation under grants HRD1760844 and DRL1920545 to M.E.L., and by the National Institutes of Health under grant T32GM081760 to A.M.S.

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    Alex M. Silver & Melissa E. Libertus

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Glossary

Count list

The list of number words in the order they appear when counting (one, two, three…).

Place-value system

A system of symbolic number notation in which the position of a digit within a number string denotes its power, and the quantity is represented by the symbol.

Arithmetic fluency

The ability to solve arithmetic problems accurately and efficiently.

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Silver, A.M., Libertus, M.E. Environmental influences on mathematics performance in early childhood. Nat Rev Psychol 1, 407–418 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-022-00061-z

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