Emotion knowledge, social behaviour and locomotor activity predict the mathematic performance in 706 preschool children

Thalia Cavadini,Nathalie Dalla-Libera,Edouard Gentaz,Sylvie Richard

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-93706-7

Thalia Cavadini, Nathalie Dalla-Libera + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93706-7

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Abstract

What are the foundational abilities that young children must develop at the beginning of school for their future academic success? Little is known about how emotion knowledge, social behaviour, and locomotor activity are associated and how these abilities may be predictors of academic-mathematic performance (less correlated with the children’s SES than pre-reading and linguistic achievement) in a large cohort of preschool children. Here we show that emotion knowledge, locomotor activity, social behaviour, and academic-mathematic performance are interrelated in 706 French preschool children aged 3 to 6. Mediation analyses reveal that the increase in academic-mathematic performance is explained by the increases in emotion knowledge and social behaviour and, in turn, children with a greater comprehension of emotions tend to have better locomotor skills and higher academic-mathematic scores. Additionally, sequential mediation analysis reveals that the increase in emotion knowledge, locomotor activity and social behaviour partially explains the increase in academic-mathematic performance. These results are discussed in relation to three possible mechanisms. Our findings are consistent with the political and scientific consensus on the importance of social-emotional abilities in the academic world at the beginning of school and suggest adding locomotor activity to these foundational abilities.

Highlights

What are the foundational abilities that young children must develop at the beginning of school for their future academic success? Little is known about how emotion knowledge, social behaviour, and locomotor activity are associated and how these abilities may be predictors of academic-mathematic performance in a large cohort of preschool children
An increased number of studies have examined the foundational abilities that prepare children for school and are essential for progress in the academic world. It is during this period at the beginning of school that children develop these abilities for their future academic success
Several studies have demonstrated that emotion knowledge was linked to social competence and academic achievement in young c hildren[4,5,6]

Summary

Introduction

What are the foundational abilities that young children must develop at the beginning of school for their future academic success? Little is known about how emotion knowledge, social behaviour, and locomotor activity are associated and how these abilities may be predictors of academic-mathematic performance (less correlated with the children’s SES than pre-reading and linguistic achievement) in a large cohort of preschool children. Mediation analyses reveal that the increase in academic-mathematic performance is explained by the increases in emotion knowledge and social behaviour and, in turn, children with a greater comprehension of emotions tend to have better locomotor skills and higher academicmathematic scores. Sequential mediation analysis reveals that the increase in emotion knowledge, locomotor activity and social behaviour partially explains the increase in academicmathematic performance These results are discussed in relation to three possible mechanisms. In a recent meta-analysis, MacCann et al (2020) examined the relation between student emotional intelligence and academic performance observed from elementary school to university They found an overall effect of ρ = 0.20 using robust variance estimation and proposed three underlining mechanisms: (1) building social relationships at school (higher emotional intelligence may be linked to a better management of the Scientific Reports | (2021) 11:14399. Results showed that the social competence mediated the association between early social understanding (including belief understanding and emotion understanding) and later school a chievement[12]

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