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

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Roid, Prifitera, & Weiss, 1993; see Sattler, 2001 for a review) as well as working memory<br />

capabilities (e.g., Geary, Hoard, Byrd-Craven, & DeSoto, 2004; McLean & Hitch, 1999;<br />

Swanson & Sachse-Lee, 2001; see Zago, Petit, & Turbelin, 2008 for adult imaging data).<br />

Moreover, <strong>influence</strong>s <strong>of</strong> working memory capabilities have also been associated with<br />

children’s development <strong>of</strong> numerical representations in recent models <strong>of</strong> typical as well as<br />

atypical development <strong>of</strong> numerical cognition (von Aster & Shalev, 2007; Rubinsten & Henik,<br />

2009, respectively). Against this background it is important to account for ra<strong>the</strong>r unspecific<br />

effects <strong>of</strong> intelligence and working memory in our longitudinal analyses because we were<br />

only interested in <strong>the</strong> specific effects <strong>of</strong> early <strong>place</strong>-<strong>value</strong> understanding on later addition<br />

performance. So, by <strong>the</strong> inclusion <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>se variables (i.e., intelligence and working memory)<br />

we aimed at isolating <strong>the</strong>se specific effects as <strong>the</strong> beta weights observed in <strong>the</strong> multiple<br />

regression analyses are <strong>the</strong>n free from <strong>influence</strong>s <strong>of</strong> intelligence and/or working memory and<br />

can be considered <strong>of</strong> reflecting <strong>the</strong> particular <strong>influence</strong> <strong>of</strong> children’s early <strong>place</strong>-<strong>value</strong><br />

understanding.<br />

To particularly investigate <strong>influence</strong>s <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Arabic</strong> <strong>place</strong>-<strong>value</strong> <strong>structure</strong>, this study<br />

focused on German speaking children. As outlined above, <strong>the</strong> German language inherits an<br />

inversion <strong>of</strong> tens and units in <strong>number</strong> words compared to digital notation. In <strong>the</strong> context <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />

current study this specificity may allow for a more comprehensive investigation <strong>of</strong> children’s<br />

competencies in <strong>place</strong>-<strong>value</strong> understanding. As understanding <strong>the</strong> principle <strong>of</strong> reversed<br />

sequences <strong>of</strong> unit and decade-digits poses a particular complicacy (Zuber et al., 2009), a<br />

higher error variance for German-speaking participants can be expected compared to<br />

participants with o<strong>the</strong>r first languages (e.g., Brysbaert, Fias, & Noël, 1998). Since some<br />

precursors <strong>of</strong> ma<strong>the</strong>matical achievement might remain undetected due to low-variance<br />

performances, <strong>the</strong> more not transparent German <strong>number</strong>-word system may thus allow for a<br />

more solid identification <strong>of</strong> basic numerical precursor competencies as it increases<br />

performance variance.<br />

137

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