Week 6: Maths

Question 1

What are domain general abilities?

Answer 1

Abilities not specific to maths but are important for learning in general such as our language abilities

Question 2

What are domain specific abilities?

Answer 2

Skills specific to maths

Question 3

What are some examples of domain general abilities?

Answer 3

Language abilities
General intelligence
Working memory

Question 4

What are some examples of domain specific abilities?

Answer 4

Symbolic abilities
Subitizing
Object tracking
ANS

Question 5

What does ANS stand for?

Answer 5

Approximate number system

Question 6

What is the ANS?

Answer 6

Animals and preverbal infants have the ability to discriminate between quantities using a non-symbolic system that relies on approximate number representations.

We can quickly tell which pannel has more dots

Question 7

What was Xu & Spelke’s study into the innate nature of the ANS?

Answer 7

Infants spent longer looking at the new quantity if they were habituated to the old one - showing they know the difference between quantities

Question 8

What was McCrink and Wynn’s study into addition and subtraction in the ANS?

Answer 8

Infants who saw addition looked longer at 5 than 10 and infants who saw subtraction looked longer at 10 than 5
Suggests infants can tell the difference between addition and subtraction

Question 9

What was Coubart’s study into the ANS and syllable counting?

Answer 9

Infants look longer at the dots that match the number of syllables
Couldn’t differentiate between 2 and 3 because the ratio wasn’t big enough
2 v 12 and 3 v 9 they could do

Question 10

What is object tracking?

Answer 10

This is our ability to track small numbers - fewer than 4. When we’re quickly shown a panel of dots, we are able to count how many there are very quickly until 4, after that we need to consciously count

Question 11

How did Starkey and Cooper demonstrate object tracking?

Answer 11

6 month olds showed sensitivity to number. They look longer when the number changes

Question 12

How did Clearfield and Mix criticize studies looking into object tracking?

Answer 12

The fact that infants are staring longer isn’t evidence they know about numbers, just that they can see a difference in volume

Question 13

What was the 2 balls study looking at object tracking?

Answer 13

When the researcher secretly removes the second ball, the child still looks for it which shows they’re keeping track of how many objects there are

This isn’t true for 4 objects as they lose track

Question 14

What is evidence that fish have an ANS

Answer 14

They prefer to be in bigger groups
When given the choice, they swam to the bigger one
Not true if the ratio is only small because they used different systems
(Object tracking v ANS when looking at 3 and 5 fish)

Question 15

Why did Piaget argue that maths is not innate?

Answer 15

Not learnt until the age of 6

can’t understand cardinal rule and will use counting terms without knowing what they mean

Question 16

What is cardinal rule?

Answer 16

We know that the last number represents the total

Question 17

How did Gelman and Mech adapt Piaget’s counting task and what did it show?

Answer 17

They were shown trials with a puppet and asked if the puppet was correct or incorect

Children were better able to do it which shows we can count around 3 or 4

Question 18

What is the 1-1 principle?

Answer 18

One number per object

Question 19

What is the stabe order principle?

Answer 19

We always say numbers in the same order otherwise they lose meaning

Question 20

How does logic predict maths ability?

Answer 20

Understanding inverse relations and how we move up and down number scales when adding and subtracting

Question 21

What factors predict maths ability?

Answer 21

Logic
Sharing
Working memory 
Intelligence 
Reasoning

Question 22

What factors predict children’s abilities when they are low income?

Answer 22

Nursery: Ability to repeat patterns and awnser 2Which thing has more” questions

Year 1: Calculation and symbolic mapping