The Effects of Language Instruction on Math Development

Examination of language, cognitive, and mathematical skills in childhood endocrine diseases

Introduction

Children diagnosed with endocrine disorders may exhibit atypical development and may encounter challenges in language, academic, and cognitive skills, as well as social-emotional issues. The objective of this study was to identify potential therapeutic requirements in the areas of language, cognition, and mathematical skills among children with endocrine disorders who experience school failure. This will enable an early evaluation of speech and language disorders and the planning of interventions to be possible.

Methods

In this study, children with endocrine disorders were compared with their normally developing peers in terms of language, cognition, mathematical skills, and psychosocial characteristics. In this study, 15 children diagnosed with endocrine disorders (8 females, 7 males; mean age: 10, SD: 2) and 15 children with normal development (8 females, 7 males; mean age: 10, SD: 2) participated. The participants were subjected to the Test of Language Development-Primary: Fourth Edition Turkish Revision (TOLDP-4:T), the Turkish Nonword Repetition Test (TNRT), the Turkish Multilingual Sentence Repetition Test (LITMUS-TR), the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-R), the Problem-Solving Test (PST), the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale-Child Version (RCADS-CV), the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory (CSEI), and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL).

Results

The findings of the study indicate that children with endocrine disease have lower performance in language, cognition, and mathematical skills compared to their healthy peers. Otherwise, they do not differ in terms of social-emotional status assessed by psychological scales.

Discussion

These findings suggest that while children with endocrine disorders face challenges in academic and cognitive domains, their social-emotional development remains relatively unaffected. Early identification and intervention in language, cognition, and mathematical skills may help address the academic struggles of these children, potentially improving their school performance and overall well-being.

Causal effect of parental reading on later development of children: Demonstrating a Bayesian approach

This study examined the relationship between early parental treatment, specifically reading to young children and later cognitive development with a Bayesian perspective. Previous research established a positive link between parental reading to infants and their cognitive development, such as receptive vocabulary, reading comprehension and motivation to read. Using data from the Millennium Cohort Study, this study analysed individuals aged 9 months to 14 years to investigate the effects of early reading to young children on nine cognitive variables. Bayesian statistical analysis controlled for pre-existing differences and covariates to establish a causal association between reading and cognitive development. The results indicated that reading to infants and toddlers positively impacted their cognitive development beyond reading skills. These findings demonstrate the usefulness of the Bayesian approach in determining scientific significance and underscore the importance of early literacy interventions in promoting cognitive development.

The roles of mathematical language and emergent literacy skills in the longitudinal prediction of specific early numeracy skills

Mathematical language (i.e., content-specific language used in mathematics) and emergent literacy skills predict children's broad numeracy development. However, little work has examined whether these domains predict development of individual numeracy skills (e.g., cardinality, number order). Thus, the aim of the current study was to examine longitudinal relations among mathematical language, emergent literacy skills, and specific early numeracy skills. Participants included 114 preschool children aged 3.12 to 5.26 years (M = 4.17 years, SD = 0.59). Specifically, this study examined whether mathematical language and three emergent literacy skills (print knowledge, phonological awareness, and general vocabulary) in the fall of preschool predicted 12 individual early numeracy skills in the spring, controlling for age, sex, rapid automatized naming, parent education, and autoregressors. Results indicated that mathematical language predicted development of most of the early numeracy skills (e.g., set comparison, numeral comparison, numeral identification), but findings for emergent literacy skills were not robust. Among the three emergent literacy skills, only print knowledge was a significant predictor of development in some specific numeracy skills, including verbal counting, number order, and story problems. Results highlight the important role of mathematical language in children's numeracy development and provide the foundation for future work in designing interventions to improve early numeracy skills.

Chinese parents' support of preschoolers' mathematical development

Research has documented the critical role played by the early home environment in children's mathematical development in Western contexts. Yet little is known about how Chinese parents support their preschoolers' development of math skills. The Chinese context is of particular interest because Chinese children outperform their Western counterparts in math, even early in development. The current study sought to fill this gap by examining a sample of 90 families of 4- and 5-year-olds from mainland China. Parental support-as measured by the frequency of parent-child engagement in home activities as well as parent number talk-and parents' role in children's numeracy skills were investigated. Results indicate wide variation among parents in both types of support. Frequency of engagement in formal numeracy activities, including counting objects and reading number story books, was related to children's knowledge of cardinality. A principal components analysis did not identify informal numeracy activities as a distinct home activity component, likely due to the infrequent occurrences of game-like numeracy activities among the Chinese families. Instead, a structured activity component emerged (e.g., playing musical instruments) and was positively related to children's arithmetic skills. Diversity, but not quantity, of parent number talk was related to children's symbolic magnitude understanding. The distinctive relationships between specific parental measures and child outcomes speak to the need for nuanced identification of home environment factors that are beneficial to particular math competencies. The findings also suggest cultural variations in the mechanisms that support children's mathematical development, highlighting the merits of investigating this topic in non-Western contexts.

Relative Contributions of g and Basic Domain-Specific Mathematics Skills to Complex Mathematics Competencies

Meta-analytic structural equation modeling was used to estimate the relative contributions of general cognitive ability or g (defined by executive functions, short-term memory, and intelligence) and basic domain-specific mathematical abilities to performance in more complex mathematics domains. The domain-specific abilities included mathematics fluency (e.g., speed of retrieving basic facts), computational skills (i.e., accuracy at solving multi-step arithmetic, algebra, or geometry problems), and word problems (i.e., mathematics problems presented in narrative form). The core analysis included 448 independent samples and 431,344 participants and revealed that g predicted performance in all three mathematics domains. Mathematics fluency contributed to the prediction of computational skills, and both mathematics fluency and computational skills predicted word problem performance, controlling g. The relative contribution of g was consistently larger than basic domain-specific abilities, although the latter may be underestimated. The patterns were similar across younger and older individuals, individuals with and without a disability (e.g., learning disability), concurrent and longitudinal assessments, and family socioeconomic status, and have implications for fostering mathematical development.

Teaching little kids big sentences: A randomized controlled trial showing that children with DLD respond to complex syntax intervention embedded within the context of preschool/kindergarten science instruction

BACKGROUND

The language of the science curriculum is complex, even in the early grades. To communicate their scientific observations, children must produce complex syntax, particularly complement clauses (e.g., I think it will float; We noticed that it vibrates). Complex syntax is often challenging for children with developmental language disorder (DLD), and thus their learning and communication of science may be compromised.

AIMS

We asked whether recast therapy delivered in the context of a science curriculum led to gains in complement clause use and scientific content knowledge. To understand the efficacy of recast therapy, we compared changes in science and language knowledge in children who received treatment for complement clauses embedded in a first-grade science curriculum to two active control conditions (vocabulary + science, phonological awareness + science).

METHODS & PROCEDURES

This 2-year single-site three-arm parallel randomized controlled trial was conducted in Delaware, USA. Children with DLD, not yet in first grade and with low accuracy on complement clauses, were eligible. Thirty-three 4-7-year-old children participated in the summers of 2018 and 2019 (2020 was cancelled due to COVID-19). We assigned participants to arms using 1:1:1 pseudo-random allocation (avoiding placing siblings together). The intervention consisted of 39 small-group sessions of recast therapy, robust vocabulary instruction or phonological awareness intervention during eight science units over 4 weeks, followed by two science units (1 week) taught without language intervention. Pre-/post-measures were collected 3 weeks before and after camp by unmasked assessors.

OUTCOMES & RESULTS

Primary outcome measures were accuracy on a 20-item probe of complement clause production and performance on ten 10-item unit tests (eight science + language, two science only). Complete data were available for 31 children (10 grammar, 21 active control); two others were lost to follow-up. Both groups made similar gains on science unit tests for science + language content (pre versus post, d = 2.9, p < 0.0001; group, p = 0.24). The grammar group performed significantly better at post-test than the active control group (d = 2.5, p = 0.049) on complement clause probes and marginally better on science-only unit tests (d = 2.5, p = 0.051).

CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS

Children with DLD can benefit from language intervention embedded in curricular content and learn both language and science targets taught simultaneously. Tentative findings suggest that treatment for grammar targets may improve academic outcomes.

WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS

What is already known on the subject We know that recast therapy focused on morphology is effective but very time consuming. Treatment for complex syntax in young children has preliminary efficacy data available. Prior research provides mixed evidence as to children's ability to learn language targets in conjunction with other information. What this study adds This study provides additional data supporting the efficacy of intensive complex syntax recast therapy for children ages 4-7 with Developmental Language Disorder. It also provides data that children can learn language targets and science curricular content simultaneously. What are the clinical implications of this work? As SLPs, we have to talk about something to deliver language therapy; we should consider talking about curricular content. Recast therapy focused on syntactic frames is effective with young children.