Phonemic awareness (PA) refers to the ability to reflect on and manipulate phonemes. The development of the ability to become aware of and conduct mental operations on phonemes might involve higher-order cognitive processes, such as executive functions (EFs), which help modulate attention to goal-relevant information and support behavioral…

Students' understanding of the meaning of the equal sign develops slowly over the primary grades. In addition to updating their representations of equations to recognize that the equal sign represents an equivalence relation rather than signaling an operation, students need to move beyond full computation to efficiently solve equivalence problems.…

Purpose: Graphotactic regularities are statistical regularities governing orthographic systems that children are sensitive to from the start of their literacy learning. The current study observed changes in children's sensitivity to a set of graphotactic patterns across different grades in elementary school and measured the contribution of skills…

Executive function (EF) training has shown promise for remedying general EF deficiencies faced by students with mathematics difficulty (MD) and for improving their performance. However, latest research also suggests that the instant and sustained effects of EF training remain inconsistent. In this study, 32 Chinese students with MD, age 7 to 10…

A number of previous studies have identified cognitive deficits in developmental dyscalculia (DD). Yet, most of these studies were in alphabetic languages, whereas few of them examined Chinese DD. Here, we conducted a study aiming to determine the cognitive factors associated with DD in Chinese children. Five candidate cognitive factors of…

The relationships between visuo-spatial abilities and geometry performances in school-aged children were examined. A battery of tests assessing non-verbal reasoning, visuo-spatial mental imagery, and academic achievement in geometry (i.e., geometric knowledge and geometric problem-solving competencies) was presented to 162 8-9.5-year-old pupils…

Growth in working memory capacity, the number of items kept active in mind, is thought to be an important aspect of childhood cognitive development. Here, we focused on participants' awareness of the contents of their working memory, or "meta-working memory," which seems important because people can put cognitive abilities to best use…

This study examined the extent to which Chinese children with dyslexia show temporal processing deficits in addition to deficits in various forms of attention. In total, 104 Chinese children in primary school (Grades 3-6) were recruited in Taiwan. Half of the children were identified as having dyslexia, and the other half were typically developing…

Many people have serious difficulties in understanding rational numbers, limiting their ability to interpret and make use of them in modern daily life. This also leads to later difficulties in learning more advanced mathematical content. In this study, novel tasks are used to measure 263 late primary school students' spontaneous focusing on…

Both for the first language (L1) and for all additional languages (L2 or L3), grammatical knowledge plays a vital role in understanding texts (e.g., Grabe, 2005). However, little is known about the development and interaction of grammar and reading comprehension in beginning foreign language learning, especially with respect to children with a…

Children practice their spatial skills when playing with spatial toys, such as construction materials, board games, and puzzles. Sex and SES differences are observed in the engagement in such spatial play activities at home, which relate to individual differences in spatial performance. The current study investigated the effects of explicitly…

The current research was aimed mainly at exploring the reliability of a short-screening tool developed to self-evaluate visuospatial abilities in children. We presented 290 Italian third, fourth, and fifth graders with the 16-item Shortened Visuospatial questionnaire and several objective measures of intellectual efficiency, such as Raven's…

Existing literature shows promising effects of physical activity on children's cognitive outcomes. This study assessed via a randomized, controlled design whether additional curricular physical activity during the school day resulted in gains for children's fluid intelligence and standardized achievement outcomes. Participants were children…

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of a program that offered sustained strategic reading instruction on reading abilities of third and fourth graders. The study was conducted among 1,469 children from 40 schools in the Netherlands. Schools were randomly assigned to either the experimental or control group. Multilevel…

Working Memory (WM) has a central role in learning. It is suggested to be malleable and is considered necessary for several aspects of mathematical functioning. This study investigated whether work with an interactive computerised working memory training programme at school could affect the mathematical performance of young children. Fifty-seven…