Very large numbers words such as "hundred," "thousand," "million," "billion," and "trillion" pose a learning problem for children because they are sparse in everyday speech and children's experience with extremely large quantities is scarce. In this study, we examine when children acquire the…

Research in cognitive development has highlighted that early numeracy skills are associated with later math achievement, suggesting that these skills should be targeted in early math education. Here we tested whether tools used by researchers to assess mathematical thinking could be useful in the classroom. This paper describes a collaborative…

What is the nature of the relationship between different lower-level numerical skills and their role in developing arithmetic skills? We consider the hypothesis of a reciprocal relationship between the development of symbolic (e.g., Arabic numerals) and nonsymbolic (e.g., arrays of objects) numerical magnitude processing. Evidence for…

Research demonstrating that infants discriminate between small (e.g., 1 vs. 3 dots) and large numerosities (e.g., 8 vs. 16 dots) is central to theories concerning the origins of human numerical abilities. To date, there has been no quantitative meta-analysis of the infant numerical competency data. Here, we quantitatively synthesize the evidential…

Developmental cognitive neuroscience highlights the importance of interactions between children and their environment. As young children spend increasing time in childcare, it is key to investigate the impact of "maths-talk" and maths provisions in preschools. Qualitative insights from early educators indicate a greater bias toward…

In recent years, there has been an increasing focus on the role played by basic numerical magnitude processing in the typical and atypical development of mathematical skills. In this context, tasks measuring both the intentional and automatic processing of numerical magnitude have been employed to characterize how children's representation and…

Individuals with mathematics anxiety have been found to differ from their non-anxious peers on measures of higher-level mathematical processes, but not simple arithmetic. The current paper examines differences between mathematics anxious and non-mathematics anxious individuals in more basic numerical processing using a visual enumeration task.…

While there has been much theoretical debate concerning the relationship between neuroscience and education, researchers have started to collaborate across both disciplines, giving rise to the interdisciplinary research field of neuroscience and education. The present contribution tries to reflect on the challenges of this new field of empirical…

The present paper provides a critical overview of how adult neuropsychological models have been applied to the study of the atypical development of numerical cognition. Specifically, the following three assumptions are challenged: 1. Profiles of strength and weaknesses do not change over developmental time. 2. Similar neuronal structures are…

The numerical distance effect (inverse relationship between numerical distance and reaction time in relative number comparison tasks) has frequently been used to characterize the mental representation of number. The size of the distance effect decreases over developmental time. However, it is unclear whether this reduction simply reflects…

Previous studies have suggested that typically developing 6-month-old infants are able to discriminate between small and large numerosities. However, discrimination between small numerosities in young infants is only possible when variables continuous with number (e.g. area or circumference) are confounded. In contrast, large number discrimination…

Understanding of the cardinality principle in children with Williams Syndrome (WS) was compared to that of typically developing children. Findings indicated that such understanding was extremely delayed in WS children and only at the level predicted by their visuo-spatial mental age. Findings suggested that visuo-spatial ability played a greater…