Abstract
Although it has been proposed that inhibition is related to individual differences in mathematical achievement, it is not clear how it is related to specific aspects of mathematical skills, such as arithmetic fact retrieval. The present study therefore investigated the association between inhibition and arithmetic fact retrieval and further examined the unique role of inhibition in individual differences in arithmetic fact retrieval, in addition to numerical magnitude processing. We administered measures of cognitive inhibition (i.e., numerical and non-numerical stroop tasks) and a complementary, more ecologically valid measure of children’s inhibition in the classroom (i.e., teacher questionnaire), as well as numerical magnitude processing (i.e., symbolic and non-symbolic numerical magnitude comparison) and arithmetic fact retrieval (i.e., two verification tasks) in 86 typically developing third graders. We used a correlation, a regression and a Bayesian analysis. This study failed to observe a significant association between inhibition and arithmetic fact retrieval. Consequently, our results did not reveal a unique contribution of inhibition to arithmetic fact retrieval in addition to numerical magnitude processing. On the other hand, symbolic numerical magnitude processing turned out to be a very powerful predictor of arithmetic fact retrieval, as indicated by both frequentist and Bayesian approaches.
Highlights
There are large individual differences in the way children acquire mathematical competencies (e.g., Dowker, 2005)
We extended the existing body of evidence by focusing on one specific mathematical skill, i.e., arithmetic fact retrieval, and by studying the joint influence of one other domain-specific skill, i.e., numerical magnitude processing, that has been robustly related to individual differences in mathematics achievement (Schneider et al, 2016), and to arithmetic fact retrieval in particular (Vanbinst et al, 2012, 2015a,b)
Several studies provided evidence for an association between inhibition and individual differences in mathematics achievement (Allan et al, 2014, for a metaanalysis). It is currently not clear how this association with inhibition occurs in specific aspects of mathematical achievement, such as arithmetic fact retrieval
Summary
There are large individual differences in the way children acquire mathematical competencies (e.g., Dowker, 2005). Inhibition and Arithmetic Fact Retrieval (De Smedt et al, 2013), which yield a total score that reflects performance averaged across various math abilities. This leaves it functionally unclear how cognitive determinants are involved in mathematical processes. The ability to retrieve arithmetic facts is a major building block for children’s development in more complex mathematical abilities (Kilpatrick et al, 2001; Geary et al, 2012) and it has been considered to be the hallmark of children with dyscalculia (American Psychiatric Association, 2013)
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