Dc. Geary et al., DEVELOPMENT OF ARITHMETICAL COMPETENCES IN CHINESE AND AMERICAN CHILDREN - INFLUENCE OF AGE, LANGUAGE, AND SCHOOLING, Child development, 67(5), 1996, pp. 2022-2044
The arithmetical competencies of more than 200 Chinese or American kin
dergarten, first-, second-, or third-grade children were assessed towa
rd the beginning and toward the end of the U.S. school year. All child
ren were administered a paper-and-pencil test of addition skills, a di
git span measure, and an addition strategy assessment. The addition st
rategy assessment provided information on the types of strategies the
children used to solve simple addition problems as well as information
on the speed and accuracy of their strategy use. Information on the n
umber of math instruction periods across times of measurement was also
obtained for each of the first-, second-, and third-grade children. T
he pattern of arithmetical development across the academic year and ac
ross the Chinese and American children suggests that a mix of cultural
and maturational factors influence the emergence of early arithmetica
l competencies and that the Chinese advantage in early mathematical de
velopment is related to a combination of language- and school-related
factors.