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The influence of the place-value structure of the Arabic number ...

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linear model as well. In line with Moeller et al. (2009a) we argue that this corroborates <strong>the</strong><br />

notion that performance improvements with age and experience may be driven in by progress<br />

in <strong>the</strong> children’s understanding <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> base-10 <strong>place</strong>-<strong>value</strong> <strong>structure</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Arabic</strong> <strong>number</strong><br />

system. In this context, <strong>the</strong> current results indicate that <strong>the</strong> process <strong>of</strong> mastering <strong>the</strong> base-10<br />

property <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>place</strong>-<strong>value</strong> <strong>structure</strong> may be language invariant as we observed no differences<br />

between German- and Italian-speaking children.<br />

On <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r hand, despite <strong>the</strong> fact that <strong>the</strong> underlying processes may be <strong>the</strong> same in<br />

both languages language differences in <strong>the</strong> <strong>number</strong> word system never<strong>the</strong>less <strong>influence</strong>d <strong>the</strong><br />

execution <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se processes. Estimation performance for two-digit <strong>number</strong>s was particularly<br />

worse in German-speaking children when confusing tens and units in integrating <strong>the</strong><br />

individual digits into <strong>the</strong> overall <strong>number</strong> (due to <strong>the</strong>ir inverted order in German <strong>number</strong><br />

words) results in large differences between <strong>the</strong> actual and <strong>the</strong> misunderstood <strong>number</strong> (i.e.,<br />

seven and twenty 72 instead <strong>of</strong> 27). This indicated that although German-speaking children<br />

refer to <strong>the</strong> same underlying process <strong>of</strong> integrating tens and units into one coherent<br />

representation <strong>of</strong> a two-digit <strong>number</strong>, <strong>the</strong> fact that <strong>the</strong> input to this process is diverse (verbal<br />

vs. digital notation) takes its toll on estimation accuracy.<br />

To conclude, we want to emphasize <strong>the</strong> importance <strong>of</strong> translingual studies for<br />

investigating <strong>the</strong> development <strong>of</strong> numerical cognition. <strong>The</strong> present study indicated that <strong>the</strong>re<br />

are language-independent as well as language-dependent <strong>influence</strong>s. However, in both cases<br />

general as well as language specific processing within a language could only be identified<br />

with <strong>the</strong> reference to at least one o<strong>the</strong>r language. Without such a direct contrast between two<br />

languages with e.g., different <strong>number</strong> word systems it is almost impossible to dissociate<br />

language specificities from more general developments <strong>of</strong> numerical competencies. In this<br />

vein, future translinguistic studies provide <strong>the</strong> possibility to better understand which aspects<br />

<strong>of</strong> numerical development follow ra<strong>the</strong>r language invariant trajectories as well as which<br />

language-specific properties <strong>influence</strong> <strong>the</strong>se trajectories and how this <strong>influence</strong> looks like.<br />

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