Understanding mathematical development in children: the mechanisms of mathematical language and mathematical abilities

Mathematical competence positively affects school performance. Studies highlighted the effect of spatial skills on children's mathematical development. These spatial skills included nonlinguistic spatial representations (e.g. mental rotation). However, language has a spatial component as well (i.e. spatial language such as prepositions), and mathematical language (i.e. spatial and numerical terms) is a strong predictor of mathematical achievement. Yet, no study up to date, has investigated the link between these specific mathematical terms and mathematical abilities. This study will explore the mechanisms between language and mathematics by carefully disentangling the effects of different mathematical terms on different mathematical abilities. Study 1 and Study 2 will explore the developmental changes in children's mathematical language abilities and how these relate to their mathematical development. Study 3 will investigate the causal mechanisms between mathematical language and mathematical abilities. Study 4 will examine how cross-linguistic differences influence mathematical abilities. These results will lead to a fine-grained operationalization of mathematical language and will allow us to understand how distinct mathematical terms are related to distinct mathematical skills. In addition, the findings will shed light to the causal mechanisms between language and mathematics, and how linguistic differences contribute to the development of mathematical skills.