Toddlers’ Mathematics and Language – Two Sides of the Same Coin?

Abstract

AbstractThis study examines the relations between toddlers’ skills in mathematics and language and whether the relations differ for children at different levels of math skills. A total of 1086 toddlers (534 girls, 552 boys) were observed in play and everyday activities in early childhood and care settings by their teachers in a three-month period from they were 30 months. Strong correlations were found between toddlers’ different math skills and the aspects of language skills when the whole group results were analysed together. When dividing their results into quartiles based on sum scores, a larger variation became visible. For children within the three lowest math quartiles, only approximately 50% were in the corresponding language quartile. For the children in the highest math quartile, 71% were also in the highest language quartile. However, there are toddlers in the lowest math quartile with high language scores and toddlers in the highest math quartile with low language scores. This variation as appears when dividing a large sample into skill level groups question, whereas the two developmental areas can be treated as two sides of the same coin.