Unique contribution of Ecuadorian kindergartners’ spontaneous focusing on numerosity to their early numerical abilities

Abstract

Recent evidence indicates that young children's spontaneous focusing on numerosity (SFON) uniquely contributes to their early numerical abilities. This study complements previous findings by validating the relation between young children's SFON and their early numerical abilities in a developing country, namely Ecuador. We analysed 355 Ecuadorian 5- to 6-year-olds' SFON in relation to their early numerical abilities at the start of kindergarten, controlling for children's socio-demographic (socio-economic status, age) and general cognitive (working memory, intelligence) characteristics. Our results evidence the unique contribution of Ecuadorian kindergartners' SFON to their early numerical abilities, controlling for children's working memory, intelligence, socio-economic status, and age. Our findings support the validity of previous findings on the unique contribution of SFON to young children's early numerical abilities in developed countries for developing countries. Additionally, they raise timely questions for further theoretical and methodological studies on young children's numerical development worldwide, in developing and developed countries. Statement of contribution What is already known? SFON uniquely contributes to early numerical abilities. However, this is only documented in Finnish samples. Previously only limited control for domain-general cognitive and socio-demographic characteristics. What does the study add? SFON uniquely contributes to early numerical abilities in Ecuadorian 5- to 6-year-olds. This unique contribution remains after controlling for WM, IQ, SES, and age. Evidence for the universal nature of the association between SFON and early numerical ability.

Longitudinal associations between spontaneous number focusing tendencies, numerical abilities, and mathematics achievement in 4- to 7-year-olds.

“…Relatedly, these weak associations might be explained by the number of SFON tasks that were used in the present study. In line with other studies (e.g., Bojorque et al, 2017;Braham et al, 2018;Hannula et al, 2010;Torbeyns et al, 2017, but for exceptions see Gray & Reeve, 2016;Hannula & Lehtinen, 2005;Hannula-Sormunen et al, 2015), we administered only one task per time point to capture children's SFON. One could argue that this use of one single task per time point has additionally constrained the measurement of variability and growth in children's SFON tendency and, therefore, decreased the possibility of detecting an association between SFON and mathematical development.…”

“…Although children’s attention to number is operationalized in different ways (Baroody et al, 2008; Baroody & Li, 2016; Chan et al, 2019; Chan & Mazzocco, 2017; McMullen et al, 2018), the most investigated spontaneous number focusing tendency thus far is children’s SFON tendency. This construct was coined by Hannula and Lehtinen (2005) and has since then been extensively studied worldwide (e.g., Batchelor et al, 2015; Bojorque et al, 2018; Braham et al, 2018; Gray & Reeve, 2016; Rathé et al, 2018; Torbeyns et al, 2018). As defined in Hannula et al (2010), SFON is a number-related and domain-specific attentional process that refers to “children’s tendency to spontaneously focus their attention on the aspect of exact numerosity of a set of items or incidents and indicates a child’s amount of self-initiated practice in recognizing exact numerosities in their everyday environment” (p. 395).…”

“…Both SFON and SFONS have been found to correlate with numerical abilities and mathematics achievement (e.g., Batchelor et al, 2015; Hannula-Sormunen et al, 2015; Hannula et al, 2010; Hannula & Lehtinen, 2005; Rathé et al, 2019; Torbeyns et al, 2018). In one of the first SFON studies, Hannula and Lehtinen (2005) investigated the development of SFON and counting skills longitudinally from the age of 3.5 to 6 years old.…”

“…Since the original SFON studies, other investigations have been conducted worldwide and found associations between SFON and mathematical development (e.g., Batchelor et al, 2015; Edens & Potter, 2013; Gray & Reeve, 2016; Torbeyns et al, 2018), whereas others did not (e.g., Chan & Mazzocco, 2017; Rathé et al, 2020b), or only found partial evidence for this relationship (e.g., DePascale et al, 2019; Nanu et al, 2018; Rathé et al, 2019). Mixed findings, for example, were reported by Nanu et al (2018), who demonstrated that preschoolers’ SFON at the age of 5 years old was uniquely predictive of arithmetic fluency and number line estimation, but not of rational number knowledge and mathematics achievement more broadly at the age of 11 years old.…”

Performance patterns and strategy use in number line estimation among preschool children with different spontaneous focusing on numerosity tendencies

“…Shorter names allow for a greater number of digits to be stored in working memory. The action‐based SFON task required children to remember the exact number of objects put into the recipient by the experimenter (Torbeyns, Bojorque, Van Hoof, Van Nijlen, & Verschaffel, 2018). Therefore, Chinese preschoolers may perform better on the SFON tasks.…”