Numerical Skills And Executive Functions’ Development In Toddlers: An Investigation Of Different Home-Learning-Environment Variables During The COVID-19 Lockdown In France. - Info and Reading Options

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It has been well established that cognitive abilities and numerical abilities are poorer in children from families of lower Socio-Economic-Status (SES), compared to those of higher SES (Lawson & Farah, 2017). Indeed, lower SES households have been found to have less cognitively stimulating and more stressful home environments, with less cognitively stimulating households being associated with a child’s cognitive development and later academic achievement (Votruba-Drzal, Levine Coley, & Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, 2004). Critically, differences across these abilities between lower and higher SES groups have been systematically reported as early as preschool age (i.e., at the age of 3 years in France; see Bradley & Corwyn, 2002 for a review). Research aiming at understanding how SES differences relate to numerical abilities have previously found that the link between SES and mathematics achievement in primary school children is partly mediated by Executive Functions (EFs), which has been found to be a strong predictor of numerical skills (Lawson & Farah, 2017). However, research exploring SES differences prior to preschool are scarce and varying learning environments represent a major challenge when interpreting the data. Children below 3 years of age typically experience a diverse range of learning environments such as day care centres, family day cares, nanny/relative caregivers, alongside their Home-Learning-Environment (HLE). During the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the learning environment for young children was restricted to the HLE for the duration of the lockdown period across countries. This unfortunate circumstance, however, has provided an unprecedented opportunity to explore, more purely than usual, SES differences in the HLE and their influence on early cognitive and numerical abilities, by examining a child’s gains in early skills over the duration of the lockdown period. Numerical abilities Exposure to numerical information is omnipresent and starts prior to preschool. By the age of 3, toddlers have (usually) already acquired some basic numerical abilities, such as using their fingers while counting (Graham, 1999), discriminating numerosities (Xu & Spelke, 2000), having a notion of counting sequences, and starting mapping number-words onto the appropriate corresponding quantities (Wynn, 1992), with a large variability between toddlers. Young toddlers also vary in their tendency to spontaneously (without being prompted to) notice and use numerosities in daily life. Notably, a higher tendency to spontaneously pay attention to numerical information in preschool is predictive of better math abilities such as counting skills (Hannula & Lehtinen, 2005) and arithmetic skills (Hannula, Lepola, & Lehtinen, 2010) later during development. On a more general note, individual differences in early numerical abilities prior to formal education are crucial since they lay the cognitive foundation and are predictive of later academic mathematics achievement. An important way to support the development of preschool numerical abilities is through a stimulating HLE (Tamis-LeMonda, Luo, McFadden, Bandel, Vallotton, 2019). Numerical abilities in the Home-Learning-Environment The HLE consists of interactions with parents or siblings, resources available in the home such as books, games, toys and activities in which toddlers can engage, but also the values and attitudes within the household. The quality of this HLE before the age of 3 is strongly linked to academic achievement at 10-11 years of age (Tamis-LeMonda, Luo, McFadden, Bandel, Vallotton, 2019) and in particular to mathematics achievement (e.g., Napoli & Purpura, 2018). For instance, maths-related learning activities at home have been shown to be associated with later maths skills (e.g., Skwarchuk, Sowinski, LeFevre, 2014). Moreover, the tendency of young toddlers to notice numerical information in the surrounding appears, at least in part, affected by the focus on numerosity in parent-child interactions (Braham et al., 2018). However, findings have not always been consistent. For example, Missall, Hojnoski, Caskie and Repasky (2015) found that maths activities at home did not significantly predict numeracy skills in preschool, and von Spreckelsen et al. (2019) even found that preschools with lower maths resources predicted better numeracy skills. This suggests that HLE and other learning environments might be part of a complex interplay, demonstrating the importance of controlling the influence of learning environments external to the HLE. This was possible due to the lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as other learning environments besides the HLE were reduced to a minimum. SES impact on numerical abilities The HLE partly reflects the socio-economic background of a family and thus early intervariability on cognitive and numerical abilities can in part be explained by SES differences at home. Indeed, prior research has demonstrated that young children from higher SES families showed higher performance on early mathematics skills compared to children from lower SES families (Ginsburg & Pappas, 2004; Starkey & Klein, 2007). This has previously been suggested to be in part due to a more cognitively stimulating home environment in higher SES households compared to more stressful home environments in lower SES households (Votruba-Drzal, Levine Coley, & Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, 2004). However, this relation has rarely been explored prior to preschool (before the age of 3 years of age). In this study, parents’ level of education and their occupations will be assessed to obtain their SES level and compare numerical abilities of toddlers in low SES HLE and high SES HLE. Executive Functions Executive Functions according to the BRIEF-P Executive Functions (EFs) are generally agreed to be an umbrella term for a variety of cognitive processes that underlie goal-directed behaviour, such as inhibitory control, working memory and cognitive flexibility (Diamond, 2013). EFs are essential for cognitive, social and psychological development and early preschool EFs have been shown to predict later academic achievement in general (Diamond, 2013) and mathematics achievement in particular (e.g., Bull & Scerif, 2001; Espy, McDiarmid, Cwik, Stalets, Hamby, & Senn, 2004). Indeed, early executive skills are crucial in order to process numerical information (Mulder, Verhagen, Van der Ven, Slot, & Leseman, 2017), and are predictive of emerging numerical skills (Espy, McDiarmid, Cwik, Stalets, Hamby, & Senn, 2004; Clark, Sheffield, Wiebe, & Espy). At the start of preschool, toddlers already demonstrate large individual differences in EFs, which can be related to family factors such as SES and HLE. Although most research on EFs has focused on preschool and early primary school years (i.e., from the ages of 4-5 years of age), because of the rapid development of EFs at this time during development (Best & Miller, 2010), reliable measures to assess EFs prior to this age have been developed. By means of a parent rating scale of everyday behaviours in the natural environment, the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function–Preschool Version (BRIEF-P) is able to assess EFs in children from 2 to 5 years of age. The BRIEF-P is a composite measure of EFs that identifies 5 scales: inhibition, shifting, emotional control, working memory and planning (Isquith, Gioia, & Espy, 2004). Executive functions in the HLE Although less researched than numerical abilities, successful development of EFs has also been linked to the HLE, with children growing up in less stimulating HLE (i.e., a HLE which is lacking appropriate cognitive resources and psychosocial interactions) being at risk of a slower development of behavioural regulations and, indirectly, showing lower scores on school readiness (Sektan, McClelland, Acock, & Morrison, 2010; Korucu, Rolan, Napoli, Purpura, & Schmitt, 2019). EFs’ specific activities at home are more difficult to identify than for instance numerical activities, but they are also ubiquitous in daily life. More stimulating HLE have mostly been linked to parent-child interactions, including parental scaffolding and parental sensitivity-responsivity. Parental scaffolding represents the verbal and non-verbal help that parents offer their child during activities, notwithstanding the child’s autonomy and decisions. Parental sensitivity-responsivity describes the parent-child interaction where parents pay attention to the child’s signals and respond accurately and appropriately (Korucu, Rolan, Napoli, Purpura, & Schmitt, 2019). Critically, both parental scaffolding and sensitivity-responsivity have been found to positively correlate with early EF development (Bernier, Carlson, & Whipple, 2010). SES impact on EFs The availability of resources and access to social resources to stimulate the development of a child’s EFs are linked to family SES, with low SES households being a risk factor to the successful development of EFs abilities. Indeed, it is believed that high SES families can offer their child better learning opportunities, more resources and social connections than low SES families, hence putting children from low SES families at higher risk for behavioural and cognitive difficulties during their neurocognitive development (Bradley & Corwyn, 2002). The present study The lockdown following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic created a unique environment which affected the life of both children and adults alike. The lockdown period restricted toddlers’ learning environments solely to the HLE, which is likely to have a major impact on their cognitive development. With the HLE being influenced by family SES, this unique pandemic situation allows us to isolate the effect of different SES home learning environments by excluding external variables such as day care, for example. As such, the present study will be able to explore, for the first time, toddlers’ gains in cognitive and numerical abilities during the lockdown period. The study aims to triangulate how individual differences in HLE influence early numerical knowledge and skills, as well as the development of EF skills in young children. In order to explore this, parents of toddlers aged between 24 and 36 months will be asked to complete 3 sets of questionnaires, one about life before the COVID lockdown, one during the COVID lockdown and a final one after the COVID lockdown. The set of questionnaires will include a maths HLE questionnaire, asking parents about the frequency in which parents engage in maths and non-maths related activities, the BRIEF-P, assessing EFs through parent ratings, and a questionnaire to determine family SES.

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