What mental skills help nine-year-olds do math?
General skills like visual memory, spatial ability, and executive processing predict mathematical ability in children, whereas a specialized 'number sense' does not.
Source
Cognitive components of a mathematical processing network in 9-year-old children
Study at a glance
- Design
- Cross-sectional — Single-session cognitive battery with permutation-tested correlations and regressions on math scores
- N
- N=98 · 51 girls and 47 boys from Year 3–4 classes in Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Essex
- Population
- Typically developing 8–10-year-old UK primary-school children with reading standard score > 85
- Outcome
- Standardized mathematical achievement predicted by visuospatial STM, spatial ability, verbal IQ and switching, not by nonsymbolic number sense once those skills are controlled
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What mental skills help nine-year-olds do math?
These passages occur verbatim in the stored paper text. They support the points listed below; they do not verify every statement in the explanation.
98 children in the sample
Here we report data from 98 children recruited from Year 3 and Year 4 classes of schools in Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in the United Kingdom.
normal reading skill threshold of a standard reading score greater than 85
Children with at least normal reading skill (standard reading score > 85) were invited to take part in the study from a sample of 1004 British children described in detail in .
What they did
The researchers evaluated 98 children using a comprehensive suite of cognitive tests to determine what factors predict mathematical performance. They measured verbal and visual memory, language skills, spatial ability, general attention, and 'number sense' (such as comparing dot patterns). They then used advanced regression analysis to compare the predictive power of these different skills directly.
What they found
They found that mathematical skill was strongly predicted by visual memory, spatial orientation, language decoding, verbal intelligence, and a task-switching test. Surprisingly, 'number sense' measures (like comparing dot quantities or symbols) did not reliably predict math performance once general cognitive skills were taken into account. Additionally, the cognitive model that successfully predicted math performance did not predict reading ability, showing that these mathematical predictors are highly specific.
The limits
What it doesn't show
The study only looked at a single age group of children, meaning these findings might not apply to younger children who are still learning basic number associations. Because the design is cross-sectional and correlational, it cannot prove that training visual memory or spatial skills will directly cause a child's math scores to improve. Furthermore, the researchers noted that their spatial orientation test was not standardized, meaning its reliability was not officially established. Finally, the study grouped overall mathematical ability together rather than examining different mathematical domains, such as geometry or algebra, which might rely on different cognitive skills.
Key terms
- Number Sense
- A proposed intuitive, biological capacity to estimate and compare quantities without using numbers or counting.
- Working Memory
- A cognitive system that holds and actively manipulates temporary information in the mind.
- Short-Term Memory
- The cognitive system responsible for maintaining a small amount of information in an active state without processing it.
- Executive Functioning
- A set of mental processes—including task switching, attention control, and inhibition—that help coordinate and manage goal-directed behaviors.
- Permutation Testing
- A distribution-free statistical method that reshuffles data to calculate how likely an observed relationship is to occur by chance.
- Phonological Decoding
- The ability to translate written letters or symbols into their spoken speech sounds.
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What reading-related inclusion criterion did the researchers apply when recruiting children for this mathematical processing study?
Common questions
Does this mean children don't actually have an innate 'number sense'?
Not necessarily. The study suggests that while children do have basic non-symbolic quantity abilities, these abilities do not play a major unique role in explaining differences in school math performance once general thinking skills are considered.
Why would language or phonological skills be important for doing math?
Solving written mathematical problems often requires translating numbers and equations into verbal speech codes in the mind, and many children retrieve memorized arithmetic facts (like multiplication tables) directly from verbal memory.
If visual memory is so important, can we improve a child's math skills by training their memory?
This study shows a strong correlation, but it cannot prove causation. Future research is needed to determine if actively training visual-spatial working memory translates into better performance in math classes.
Why did the researchers exclude children with reading difficulties?
They specifically selected children with at least normal reading skills, requiring a standard reading score higher than 85, to ensure that poor reading ability would not interfere with the children's ability to understand the math tasks.
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