• Experimental evidence shows that playing simple number-focused board games with preschool-aged children can improve their mathematical skills.
• Playing number games and encouraging young children to think about numbers in everyday conversations can help children practice counting principles and notice number-related aspects of their environment.
• Following children’s lead and encouraging mathematical thought in their interests may help them become more interested in math in the long term.

Incorporating math in everyday play at home

“Five, six, seven, eight,” counts four-year-old Remy as he moves his token three spaces, counting on from five, where he ended his last turn.
“Now I’m winning!” he says.
“How do you know that?” asks his dad.
“I’m on eight and you’re on six and eight is bigger than six!” answers Remy.

This vignette of a father and his son highlights the unique opportunities for preschool-aged children to learn from simple activities in the home, such as playing board games. Opportunities for engaging with mathematical information at home are referred to as the home math environment.

Previous meta-analytic research (which provides an average of effects from more than 60 studies) has established that the home math environment relates to children’s performance on math skills tests.

Young children tend to do better at math when they do things at home like identify and write numbers; play games with cards, dice, and spinners; and sort objects by shape, size, or color.

However, these correlational findings alone do not tell us much and leave unanswered two important questions:

1. Does increased engagement with mathematical and numerical information at home cause children to become better at math?
2. Do children who are better at math seek out more play opportunities that involve math than other preschool-aged children?

Photo: Karolina Grabowska. Pexels.

In addition, it is well-documented that mathematical skills are at least somewhat intergenerational in nature: Children of parents who are good at math tend to be better at math themselves.

To learn more, we asked whether playing games that involve counting improves children’s mathematical skills and whether improving parents’ math skills indirectly leads to improvements in children’s math skills.

How can we improve children’s math skills?

My colleagues and I conducted a study with 162 four-year-olds, each of whom was with one of their parents. The research took place in a large urban area in western Pennsylvania, and families were randomly assigned to one of five conditions. Parents were instructed to play an assigned game at home (either with their child or by themselves, depending on the condition) twice weekly for eight weeks:

1. Number board game (parents and children): Players used a spinner with numbers 1-6 and moved the number of spaces the spinner pointed to on their turn. Participants were told to count each space aloud as they moved their piece.
2. Shape board game (parents and children): Players used a spinner with different shapes (e.g., square, circle, triangle) and moved to the next space marked with that shape on their turn. Participants were told to name the shape on each space aloud as they moved their piece.
3. Computerized math game (parents only): This game was designed to improve parents’ math skills involving approximate mental addition or subtraction. Parents were shown sets of dots on the screen, then asked to say how many dots were there; the sets changed too quickly to count.
4. Computerized trivia game (parents only): Parents were asked to respond to multiple-choice questions involving general trivia.
5. “Business-as-usual” control group: Families were not given new materials and were asked to proceed with life as usual.

The conditions were devised to help us answer the following questions:

• Does playing a number game improve math skills more than playing an identical board game that does not involve numbers?
• Does a game that challenges parents’ math skills improve their children’s math skills more than a game that tests parents’ knowledge of general trivia?
• Do preschool-aged children learn more when they are directly involved in playing number games with their parents than they do when their parents play alone?
• Do preschool-aged children’s math skills improve more through these game-based interventions than they do without intervention?

Preschool children’s math improved the most from playing a number game with their parent

Children in the number board game condition outperformed children in the other conditions on a standardized math assessment after two months of engaging with their assigned condition.

In other words, children’s math skills improved the most when parents played a number game (versus a non-number game) with them (versus without the children).

Parent-child interactions that directly incorporate number, such as playing number board games together, can lead to improvements in children’s math skills.

Moreover, this improvement resulted from the intervention, not simply because of natural everyday learning (the business-as-usual condition).

While differences faded two months beyond the end of the intervention (as seen in a delayed post-test after materials had been taken away), there was still an indication of a positive effect, and continuing the intervention or testing a larger group might have found lasting effects.

Supporting parents’ math does not necessarily improve their preschool child’s skills

Parents in the computerized parent math game condition improved their own math skills and this improvement was present in the delayed post-test two months later.

However, in the delayed post-test, their children’s math skills were worse than their peers in the control condition. This appeared to have been due to changes in the home math environment: Parents in the math game condition reported doing fewer math activities with their children over the study than did parents assigned to play number board games with their children.

This finding is somewhat intuitive: Parents have a limited amount of time, so asking them to spend some of that time playing a game alone takes away from time they could be playing with their children.

While parents’ math skills seem to relate to preschool-aged children’s math skills, more research is needed to better understand why: Maybe parents who are better at math engage in more play with their children around math concepts, or maybe they express less hesitancy (or math anxiety) in those interactions. What is clear is that improving parent’s math skills does not necessarily affect children’s math skills.

Number games promote learning about numbers and counting

Overall, our findings show that playing number board games with children can lead to improvements in children’s math skills. But why?

Children benefit from repeated practice of saying the numbers in the count list in order, making more/less comparisons, and matching each number with a discrete object (e.g., a space on a board).

In addition, numerous studies have found that children who notice number-related characteristics of their surroundings (as opposed to other characteristics, such as color or shape) tend to perform better on tests of mathematical skills.

Photo: Keira Burton. Pexels.

Returning to the example of Remy and his dad, this short interaction gave Remy a chance to practice a lot of the principles necessary for learning to count.

He had the opportunity to practice reciting the count list in order and to see that each space represents one and only one count in the count list (one-to-one correspondence) in a potentially new context with objects he had not counted before (abstraction).

Through a simple prompt, Remy also had opportunities to make a more/less comparison and to discuss the stable order of the count list. That is, he recognized that eight is and will always be more than six, and that regardless of starting point (here, starting from five), the count list progresses in the same way (stable order; order irrelevance).

In playing the number board game, Remy (and the participants in our study) may have been encouraged to see the numerical features of their surroundings.

In everyday life, while one child might see a scene in the clouds, another might notice that there are exactly four clouds; similarly, one child might see apples ready to be picked from a tree, while another might see a proportion of red to green apples.

This is also true for adults: One individual may notice herself automatically operating mathematically even when it is not necessary (e.g., in looking at a clock at 6:18, she notices a 1:3 ratio), while another adult may perform a quick approximation (e.g., note that it is about 6:20) or see a general association with the time (e.g., “It’s getting late — we should have dinner soon!”).

Parents can incorporate math into everyday activities

Whether in board games, card games, or everyday routines, parents and caregivers can help preschool-aged children better understand principles of counting. Adults can encourage children to focus on numerical features by using simple conversational cues, such as:

• “How many are there?”
• “Are there more (X) or more (Y)?”
• “Who has more?”
• “Which is (bigger/smaller)?”

These kinds of prompts can be used in all sorts of contexts, including:

• Reading books: counting objects on a page, making comparisons to past pages or inferences about pages to come, discussing relative sizes
• Public transit: counting down the number of stops remaining, noticing the route number, discussing the number of passengers and how that changes as people board and disembark
• Cooking: measuring ingredients, counting additions or stirs, tracking time
• Grocery shopping: buying on a budget, tracking items, choosing a checkout line based on the number of items allowed and the shoppers in line

Making math learning fun and engaging for preschool-aged children

Children who have fun engaging with math information and games may find themselves drawn to those topics and activities in the future. As such, it may be unsurprising that children in our study who were randomly assigned to play a mathematically focused game outperformed their peers who did not play the game on a math test.

Children who have fun engaging with math information and games may find themselves drawn to those topics and activities in the future.

However, using a numerical board game this way does not have to represent an isolated context.

While parents and caregivers can help shape preschool-aged children’s interests by incorporating enjoyable media in a content area, children can also choose activities based on their own interests.

These interests can be a starting point for further learning, and encouraging and following them may produce a trusting, fruitful, and engaging relationship. In turn, that relationship can support the development of curiosity and inquiry. Such an approach also provides an opportunity to capitalize on children’s interests to build excitement about mathematical learning.

Conclusions: Support children’s math learning during play and daily routines

Extending beyond the well-documented correlational evidence that the home math environment relates to children’s math skills, we now have experimental proof that playing numerical board games can improve preschool-age children’s math skills.

Just as importantly, we know that parents have limited time and, when it comes to trying to improve children’s math skills, that time is better spent on talking about numbers while playing with their children than on working alone on their own math skills.

These activities can also happen in routine parent-child interactions. Parents can engage children’s interests in all sorts of settings, including on transit, while cooking and shopping, and when reading a book.

With simple questions and prompts, parents can highlight number in many non-math activities. Incorporating these small changes so children see number in all they do can have a meaningful effect on math skills.

The post Playing number games with preschool-aged children can improve their math skills appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

• Before children enter formal schooling, a good way for parents to help children learn math is through activities such as playing games that involve numbers.
• Once children enter formal schooling and have homework, these activities become less frequent. Unfortunately, parents often have more negative feelings (e.g., frustration and irritation) when they are involved in their children’s math homework than when they are involved in activities, and this can undermine children’s math learning.
• When they feel efficacious (e.g., confident) in helping, parents are less likely to have negative feelings during children’s math homework.
• Information on what children are learning and how to best help children may contribute to parents feeling efficacious.

How Parents Can Help with Math Learning at Home

Before children enter formal schooling, many parents engage their offspring in informal math activities, such as measuring while cooking and playing games that involve numbers. These kinds of activities can help children learn key math concepts and become interested, as well as confident, in math. However, with children’s entry into formal schooling, activities of this type may occur less frequently as children have assigned homework to complete.

Photo: Julia M Cameron. Pexels.

Unfortunately, parents often have more negative feelings (e.g., frustration and irritation) when they are involved in their children’s math homework than when they are involved in activities.

To better understand how parents can continue to help their children learn math once they enter formal schooling, we studied two primary questions:

• Is it useful for parents to get involved in their children’s math homework?
• Is math homework just as good an opportunity as math activities for parents to help children learn math?

Measuring Parents’ Involvement and Children’s Motivation and Achievement in Math

Our study included 483 parents of first and second-graders in the midwestern United States. Most parents were White (67%), 17% were Black, 8% were Asian, 5% were Latinx, and 4% were of another ethnicity or more than one ethnicity. Parents’ highest level of educational attainment ranged from less than a college degree (29%) to an advanced graduate degree (38%).

We asked the parents to complete a survey every day for 10 days. Parents reported on whether their children had math homework and if they were engaged in math activities such as math board games or workbooks. Parents then reported on qualitative aspects of their involvement in their children’s math homework and activities – such as whether they had negative (e.g., irritated) or positive (e.g., happy) feelings during their involvement. They also completed a one-time survey on their feelings of efficacy in helping their children with math (e.g., their level of confidence in their ability to help).

Photo: Jessica Lewis. Unsplash.

To understand how parents’ involvement in their children’s math homework contributes to children’s math learning, we also measured children’s math motivation and achievement at two times – when we measured parents’ involvement in their children’s math learning and one year later. Children indicated how much they liked math, chose between easy and difficult math problems in making a worksheet for themselves, and took a math achievement test.

Confident Parents are More Constructively Involved in Math Homework

We found that parents’ involvement in their children’s math homework was less constructive than their involvement in math activities: Parents tended to have more negative and less positive feelings when working on homework than they did when engaged with activities. Importantly, the lower parents’ self-efficacy (e.g., having less confidence in their ability to help with math), the more negative and less positive their emotions were when they were involved in both math activities and homework, but this was particularly true for homework.

One reason for these findings may be that some parents might feel like they do not know how to help children learn math when it comes to math homework, which may be more difficult than math activities. Children often become frustrated with homework, which may lead some parents to become frustrated because they feel out of their element in helping children. This may be particularly true in math since the Common Core curriculum used in most U.S. classrooms today often relies on different methods than parents learned as children.

Unfortunately, the more parents’ involvement in their children’s math homework was characterised by negative emotions, the more children disliked math, avoided difficult math problems when making their worksheet, and had poor math achievement a year later. Moreover, parents were more involved in math homework and less involved in math activities with older than younger children.

Together, these findings suggest that parents become less constructively involved in children’s math learning as children get older because more time is spent on math homework and less time is spent on math activities. However, parents’ feelings of efficacy could buffer them from unconstructive involvement, which suggests that boosting parental self-efficacy can enhance parental involvement.

Photo: Monstera. Pexels.

How Can Parents Help Children Learn Math Once They Enter Formal Schooling?

While parents are involved with children’s math homework, they can act as cheerleaders and provide a sounding board. Parents can be encouraging when children hit a stumbling block, acknowledging their frustration, allowing them to explore on their own, and offering a hint to help them get on the right track when they ask for help.

When they feel efficacious (e.g., confident) in helping, parents are less likely to have negative feelings during children’s math homework.

When children encounter problems, parents can also suggest that children ask their teacher the next day about how to do the work. During elementary school, children usually do not have to turn in mistake-free homework. Parents can also seek advice – for example, from the teacher – about what their children are learning in math and how best to help.

Recommendations For Math Teachers Working with Parents and Children

Teachers also have a role. They might think about how they can steer parents toward constructive involvement in children’s math homework (for example, by communicating that mistakes on homework are part of the learning process, so parents do not get frustrated when children have difficulty) or assist parents in feeling efficacious in helping. In the early years of schooling, this may be as simple as telling parents they do not need to know a lot about math to support their children and giving them information on what children are learning, along with a few tips on helping their children.

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The overall sensitivity of the fathers during play in this sample of 312 families – 119 African American fathers and 193 Latino fathers – was high.

A research study focusing on low-income Latino and African American fathers in the USA has found a correlation between how sensitively they play with their preschool children and their children’s math achievement scores in kindergarten. This correlation exists irrespective of the level of mothers’ sensitive support for these children.

The researchers’ combined various aspects into their measure of sensitive play:following the child’s lead in what the child wants to play with, responding positively to the child’s behaviors and language, and helping the child when needed. 

Overall in this sample of 312, fathers’ sensitivity during play was high. In all the families selected for the research, the father lived in the child’s home. (This means the research is not fully representative of fathers’ contributions in all family formations.)

The correlation was found between sensitive play and kindergarten math achievement only; there was no correlation with reading achievement.

According to the researchers, “Early childhood intervention programs focused on parenting skills too often focus almost exclusively on mothers and neglect the importance of involving fathers.” They argue that the results of this play study show that supporting fathers can lead to better academic achievement at school. But they caution that “involving fathers in early childhood programs will require innovative delivery models that accommodate the needs and preferences of fathers.”

Much research shows a link between preschool parenting and early school academic achievement. Parental sensitivity can buffer the negative effects of the kinds of risks that are more prevalent in the environments where many ethnic minority families live. 

The great majority of research on this link focuses on mothers, but evidence is growing that fathers also play an important role. The role of a father is particularly important when the mother is unsupportive of the children: supportive fathering is associated with higher school readiness in children whose mothers are unsupportive.

One problem in the research is that measures of parental sensitivity tend to be designed to capture how mothers care for children. Such measures may not capture important aspects of how fathers interact with their children. On average, observations show, fathers care for their children differently from mothers, with more teasing, more physical play and risk taking, and the use of more challenging language.

The deficit in research regarding fathers is even stronger in relation to ethnic minority fathers. Some research adopts a ‘deficit perspective’, focusing on the problems of ethnic minority fatherhood such as father absence. Yet research shows generally high levels of father contribution: one study found that two–thirds of fathers in a racially diverse study read to their toddler at least once a week.

To understand parenting in ethnic minority families, we must take into account the environmental conditions that such families experience—for example, high rates of poverty and confronting racism and prejudice. Such environmental factors can require a different parenting approach to prepare the child for a different world. For example, the “no nonsense” parenting style seen in some African American families may be a necessary protective factor for the children and can be associated with high levels of warmth.

In this research project, involving 119 African American and 193 Latino fathers (mostly Mexican), the children were observed and videoed at play, first with their fathers and then their mothers. When the child was 2.5 years old, each parent was given three bags with toys in them to open and play with their child over 15 minutes. This process was repeated when the child was 3.5 years old (but with only two bags and for only 10 minutes). Later, in kindergarten, the child was tested for academic achievement in both math and language.

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Cognitive development at adolescence predicted by early mother-child and caregiver-child interactions.

Our recent study of more than 1,300 families in the United States makes a compelling cognitive development case for investments to help mothers and other caregivers provide stimulating and responsive care of infants and toddlers.

We found that mothers’ stimulating and responsive care of children in the first three years predicts improved cognitive development – specifically, better maths and vocabulary skills – through childhood and into adolescence. Similar good practice from nonfamilial caregivers was also linked to better math performance, though not as strongly as interactions with mothers. The study, by us and Sara Schmitt, appears in the journal Developmental Psychology.

By stimulating and responsive care, we mean behaviors such as regularly talking to infants and toddlers in ways that are attuned to their interests. In our observational tests, which involved playing with toys, researchers looked for adult behaviors that engaged with the young children’s play, where the adults stayed sensitively involved, neither ignoring the child nor taking over the play.

Boosted cognitive development

It is perhaps less surprising that mothers’ conversations and interactions during the first three years are associated with children’s later vocabulary. But it is particularly interesting that this is also linked to another key indicator of cognitive development – improved mathematics performance later in life.

“By stimulating and responsive care, we mean talking and reacting to young children in ways that are sensitive to their interests.”

We found that the boost in cognitive development predicted by good adult caring in the first three years was most apparent when the children were four and a half years old, just before they began formal schooling. The impact then fell away a little, but the influence of good care delivered in infancy and toddlerhood subsequently stabilised and remained substantial and detectable throughout childhood until at least age 15. We are following the sample to see whether the cognitive development impacts are still detectable at age 26.

Deprivation particularly impacts on cognitive development

Our findings particularly highlight that it is critically important to identify and support deprived infants and toddlers who are not receiving stimulating and responsive care –either from their mother or from a caregiver. We found that such a “dual care gap” not only combined the losses one might expect in cognitive development, it amplified them. These children experienced roughly twice what we anticipated would be the combined impact.

Our findings confirm that mothers’ and caregivers’ stimulating and responsive care in the later preschool period, at four and a half years, predicted additional increases in cognitive development. This evidence helps justify current interventions to support better care for this older preschool age group. However, the benefits for cognitive development from stimulating-responsive care at four and a half years were less pronounced than the influence of stimulating-responsive caring practice during the first three years.

Photo: Giang Hồ Thị Hoàng. Creative Commons.

Implications for early childhood development policy

Our findings would therefore justify additional support for children under three, especially given the evidence from other studies that document wide variations in the caregiving that young children receive during the first three years. For example, other studies have found that about only about half of US children are receiving stimulating and responsive care from their caregivers.

“Our findings justify additional support for children under 3, given the wide variations in caregiving that young children receive during the first three years.”

This picture can be changed. Research by Professor Mary Dozier at the University of Delaware and others shows that interventions during the first three years are effective at improving both parental and caregiver practices.

Understanding fathers’ role in first three years

Our study used data from an archived data set covering a total of 1,364 families. It focussed on observations of mother-child interactions and carer-child interactions at six, 15, 24 and 36 months and again at 54 months (four and a half years). A father or father figure was present in two-thirds of this sample and were subject to the same observational tests as the mothers. This data set therefore provides a similar opportunity to ascertain how fathers’ stimulating and responsive care in the first three years might contribute to children’s cognitive development through childhood and beyond.  We would expect to find positive links, since other literature demonstrates that the quality of later father-child interactions also influences educational achievement.

Conclusions for early child cognitive development

This unusually large and lengthy study of child cognitive development suggests that policymakers and practitioners should take a long, hard look at how they provide resources to support children, parents, and caregivers during the first three years.

Our findings show that it is important to focus on this period, not to the detriment of four- and five-year-olds but in addition to the help already provided for them. Our research backs up findings from neuroscience that considerable damage can be done to cognitive development during the first three years that will be hard to make good later on, despite much effort.

Thus every effort must be made to avoid damage in the first place, with a real emphasis required to improve the situation of those children under three, who may find themselves in deprived, unstimulating, unresponsive conditions, where lack of skilled caregiving means that there is insufficient compensation for inadequate parenting. The amplified legacy of this neglect – through childhood, into adolescence and probably beyond – is all too obvious from our study. The case for interventions of proven efficacy is compelling; they should not be delayed.

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To take a modern approach to cognitive development theory it is important to emphasise relationships, and view social interaction as the crucible in which children’s cognitive development takes place. In other words, the mind forms through being part of and contributing to social interaction, a process charged by emotion. Growing up within families provides for a long period of intense social interaction.

(Other cognitive development theories include “nativist” approaches that regard the mind as having innate abilities, growing rather like a tree does from a seed, and “empiricist” approaches that focus only on the factors that act on the mind to form it, rather than also on how the mind influences those factors.)

A relational approach can be illustrated with Donald Winnicott’s memorable quotation from 1964: “there is no such thing as a baby”. What he meant was that a baby is embedded in a complex web of interactions with others, to the extent that the boundary between the baby and parent is no longer distinct.

This theory of cognitive development sees the baby and parent shaping each other’s neurological development. Babies don’t just engage with their surroundings; they influence and shape the environment in which they learn skills. Even basic gestures such as smiling emerge through a process of development.

The relational theory of cognitive development encompasses the wider societal level: the person and culture are co-created like parent and child. A person becomes a member of society by engaging in routines, traditions, rituals, and the use of objects and symbols, including language. The person both grows as part of the culture and forms the culture with others.

Nowadays, the dominant theory of cognitive development is termed “process-relational”.

Where does the biology stop and the social start? The nature/nurture argument does not apply in this worldview. For example, social experience has now been shown to influence the way genes are expressed, through epigenetic changes.

DNA is the source material and is fixed, but how it is expressed can be changed by experience. This has generated a whole new branch of research, social genomics: the study of how social experience shapes gene expression.

The father of cognitive development theory: Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) has had a monumental impact on cognitive development theory. Piaget proposed a developmental theory based on the view of development known as “constructivism.” That is, we come to know the world through acting on it. He wrote that, “In order to know objects, the subject must act upon them and, therefore, transform them.”

Piaget argued that babies and children learn about the world through their action on the world. In this process they develop patterns of interaction involving emotions, sensations, motor movements, and perception, known as “schemes”.

Once a scheme begins to develop through particular interactions, it will be extended in slightly different situations. That is, the child assimilates new experiences to what she has previously learned, but since the experience will be different, the scheme will be modified or accommodated. Repeated many times, this process results in cognitive development.

(Photo: Shutterstock.)

Piaget said children learn through interaction with the world, developing patterns called “schemes”.

Piaget was interested in the stage-by-stage sequence of development that all children go through, each stage providing the foundation for the next. Through extraordinarily detailed observations of children, including his own three, he proposed four stages:

• Sensorimotor stage (during the first two years): a stage in which babies develop action schemes like sucking, pushing, hitting and grasping.
• Pre-operational stage (between two and seven years): the child develops the ability to think, but has limited ability to apply logic to a situation to deduce something by thought alone.
• Concrete operational stage (between seven and 11 years): the child starts working things out through logical thought, rather than just action.
• Formal operational stage (12-15 years): the child engages in systematic experimentation, forming hypotheses, testing them out and trying alternatives.

Sociogenesis theory of cognitive development: Lev Vygotsky

Another 20th-century giant of child development theory, Lev Vygotsky, is commonly regarded as the originator of the idea that the mind forms through social processes.

In fact, the idea predates him considerably, but he articulated it and developed it into a major influence on the modern science of child development, a remarkable feat since he only spent 11 years working on it, moving from work on art and literature when he was 27 and tragically dying when he was only 38.

According to Vygotsky, all higher mental functions occur twice, first between people in social interaction, then within the person’s mind. In this way, he said, social interactions form the mind, they don’t just influence a process already in motion like watering a seed to grow into a plant.

A key tenet of cognitive development theory is Vygotsky’s “zone of proximal development”. This follows from his idea that thinking is first social before becoming mastered by an individual.

In the process of developing a new way of thinking there is a gap between what children can achieve alone and what they can achieve with the assistance of others. Two children may appear to be at the same level of development, but with help, one may be capable of more than the other. They differ in their ability to master a new way of thinking.

The key to cognitive development, according to Vygotsky, is the help that the more experienced adult gives the child to grow within this zone.

(Photo: Shutterstock.)

Vygotsky’s “zone of proximal development” highlights how children learn best with guidance, bridging the gap between what they can do alone and with help.

Vygotsky introduced the idea of “elementary” and “higher” mental functions. Elementary functions are products of evolution and biologically explained. They include involuntary attention and the ability to make simple connections between events.

In contrast, higher mental functions emerge through social interactions and culture. These include language, systems of counting, memorising techniques, art, literature, maps, and so on.

Vygotsky paid much attention to how language develops and considered how children talk to themselves. According to his theory of cognitive development, children learn to talk through relationships and conversations and then use speech as a tool for their own thinking, by talking to themselves.

This applies equally to hearing children, and sign language used by children who cannot hear. Research has indeed shown that children who interact more with others talk to themselves more when they are alone, and that children who are not allowed to talk to themselves perform less well in cognitive tests.

Later, speech goes “underground” to become inner speech or verbal thought, though it sometimes comes back out during adulthood. For example, when we are working out particularly difficult problems. Vygotsky theorised that children (and adults) use speech when operating in their zone of proximal development, just beyond their level of competence.

How parents can support cognitive development: scaffolding

Cognitive development theory uses a metaphor from the construction industry: scaffolding, a temporary structure around the growing building to assist its construction.

In cognitive development theory, scaffolding gives children a structure to master a skill, after which it becomes redundant. In this context, scaffolding is about supporting children within their zone of proximal development: setting goals, regulating their actions and inhibiting unhelpful responses, organising their actions and selecting strategies. It can be as simple as a series of hints and prompts that are appropriate for the child’s developmental level.

Recently, many researchers have studied scaffolding and its impact on cognitive development when variously applied. Cognitive development advances when scaffolding is applied well and constantly adjusted to the child’s progress.

Piaget versus Vygotsky

Psychologists have long sought to discuss the theory of cognitive development by comparing the work of Piaget and Vygotsky, both of whom emphasised the role of social interaction, though in different ways.

In reality, both of them emphasised social interaction to such a degree that even leading experts often can’t read statements from one or the other and be certain of whether it was written by Piaget or Vygotsky.

One way to see a difference is through a thought experiment: What would happen to child development if there were no adults?

For Vygotsky, there would be no development, because children cannot move forward out of their zone of proximal development without more expert help.

For Piaget, there could be development, albeit not a type to be recommended. Two children interacting with each other could learn more than one child alone.

Executive function: a core concept in cognitive development theory

Put very simply, executive function is a set of mental skills that helps a person gain control over their actions and thoughts. Scientists have identified four components:

1. Working memory – the ability to hold information and recall it when carrying out a task.
2. Inhibitory control – suppressing initial impulses in favour of more rational action.
3. Attentional flexibility – changing from one way of solving a problem to another.
4. Planning – using all the skills above, creating a strategy to get a task done.

(Photo: Shutterstock.)

Executive function emerges through social interactions, particularly parental scaffolding that helps children operate in their zone of proximal development.

These skills develop in a sequence. Working memory typically develops in early childhood and improves during preschool and beyond. Inhibitory control and attentional flexibility develop in preschool. Planning skills develop during childhood and adolescence.

Like other cognitive development skills, executive function emerges through social interactions, particularly parental scaffolding that helps children operate effectively in their zone of proximal development. If children are specifically taught executive function skills at an appropriate level relative to their development, their skills improve.

Poverty is a key inhibitor of developing executive function skills. But its negative impacts can be mitigated if the parent-child attachment is secure and if the child has more social interaction, for example, at a daycare facility. Sadly, poverty reduces parental resources and is frequently associated with poorer relationships and more chaos.

Cognitive development theory: the importance of social interaction in language development

Unsurprisingly, language ability is critical to the cognitive development that takes place within relationships. The importance of social interaction in language development is one of the most consistent findings across cognitive development research.

Language develops in a critical early period of a child’s life. Research on feral children and on deaf children raised without sign language shows that they cannot learn normal syntax and morphology.

The first language abilities emerge shortly after birth. Babies will respond more to familiar voices, the language of their families, and books that were read aloud while they were in the womb. One-year-olds can distinguish among speech sounds that adults who have learned particular languages can no longer distinguish.

Babies understand words before speaking them. When they learn to speak in their second year, there is an explosion of understanding and speaking words.

So great is the richness and complexity of what children learn so quickly that some have proposed particular innate skills, beyond just the ability to use language that humans have, but other animals don’t.

Noam Chomsky has proposed an innate propensity to grasp syntax and proposed a “universal grammar” for human beings. As children develop, he argues, pre-existing on/off switches are triggered, leading the child from the universal grammar to the actual languages they learn.

Proponents of a social cognitive development theory find many problems with this version of nativism. The developmental view, based on Piaget and Vygotsky, is that children learn language through interaction with their parents and others and through learning social routines on which communication is based.

Parents typically modify language for babies and toddlers – a high intonation often called child-directed speech. This is often called motherese, though fathers do it too. Parents speak more slowly and more simply (though perhaps not in all cultures). Interestingly, in some contexts, fathers tend to use more complex speech, stretching children more within their zone of proximal development. This might be why a father talking with his child correlates better with later language skills than a mother talking with her child.

Researchers have also found that simply hearing words in their environment makes no difference to their language ability. Instead, children learn words in interactions with parents and carers. Time and again, the importance of social interaction in language development is reinforced, lying at the heart of cognitive development.

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This is the first study to find a link all the way from early experience of praise to later cognitive ability.

It wasn’t just any praise that made the difference to cognitive development, and still less the amount of talking that parents did with their toddlers. What made a difference was what the researchers call “process praise” – that is, praise emphasising the child’s effort. “You did a great job trying to put that back!” “I like it when you do it all different colors.” Process praise is different from “person” praise, like “good girl!” and “you are smart!”

The link between this kind of early praise and later achievement was found via children’s belief that intelligence is malleable and open to change through effort. This was measured when the children were eight.

The study makes a strong case that parents and teachers should emphasise praise for effort with toddlers to improve their cognitive development.

The science: praise and cognitive development

Earlier research by the same team found that process praise early in life is associated with a belief that intelligence is malleable at the age of seven to eight. The researchers call this belief an “incremental motivational framework” or an “incremental mindset”. Children who have an incremental mindset and believe that achievement is related to effort rather than just ability are more likely to sustain effort in the face of difficulty. They are also more likely to seek challenges and increase their ability.

In contrast, children who believe intelligence is fixed may do well in subjects that come easily. They will struggle, however, to remain motivated when challenged. They are more likely to be afraid that failure exposes their fixed inability.

Other research has also found a link between belief in malleable intelligence and academic achievement in elementary and middle school.

The link has a cumulative effect on cognitive development. A difference in academic achievement at the age of eight between children who approach things with an incremental mindset and children who have a fixed mindset is likely to grow bigger over time. Children with an incremental mindset are more likely to capitalise on each learning opportunity. In response to setbacks, they will increase engagement rather than back off. They will enjoy challenges more.

The study followed 53 children for seven years, starting in toddlerhood. Parents’ praise was measured at one, two, and three years old. The children’s motivational framework was assessed when they were seven to eight. Two things were examined in particular at this stage.

• Beliefs about the fixed/malleable nature of intelligence.
• Preference for challenging versus easy tasks in order to achieve goals.

The children’s achievement in math and reading comprehension – achievements that are strongly influenced by effort – was measured when they were nine to 10 years old.

The findings

Analysing the scores from the three different stages, the researchers found a cognitive development pathway from early process praise at ages one to three, to incremental motivation at ages seven to eight, to academic performance at ages nine to 10.

Of the two types of incremental motivation measured at eight years old – belief in malleable intelligence and willingness to tackle more difficult challenges – only the belief in malleable intelligence was significant. That is, the child’s mindset appears to be the significant factor.

Parents’ socioeconomic status made a difference to children’s achievement; children of parents with low status achieve less. Nevertheless, the association between early praise for effort and later academic achievement was found at all socioeconomic levels.

Similarly, the link between early process praise and later academic achievement held true for both boys and girls. But the researchers found that boy toddlers tend to receive more process praise than girl toddlers, and that boys have slightly stronger incremental motivation at eight years old and show higher achievement in math at nine and 10, on average.

Children who do better at age eight are likely to be doing better at nine and 10. In this study, the gap between children who had received more early process praise and those who received less grew even wider.

What does this mean for child cognitive development practice and policy?

Though the sample size was small (53 children), it was socially diverse and specialised statistical techniques clearly revealed indirect effects in the data. Only a bigger study could determine if the results would be replicated in a wider population.

Nevertheless, the results provide a good case for incorporating a mindset approach in work with parents and teachers to promote cognitive development in toddlers and young children.  Parents in particular could be taught about the value of process praise. But we should be mindful of the risk of communicating that any kind of praise is what counts. For example, hyperbolic over-praise (“that was an incredibly amazing catch”) can discourage children from taking on challenges, especially children with low self-esteem.

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• Learning stimulation at home was the key predictor of achievement in verbal skills and, to a lesser extent, math skills.
• An orderly household and close parental supervision were the strongest predictors of positive socioemotional outcomes, even more so than sensitive parenting.

Growing up in a low-income family has negative implications for a child’s development. Research has shown that much of that fact can be attributed to the financial and psychological strain that low income places on parents, who are less able to engage in positive parenting practices and to provide materials, time and energy to stimulate a child’s learning. But low-income families vary widely, in relation both to parenting and to children’s outcomes. This study focused on such variations to examine low-income families’ investments for promoting positive outcomes among children.

Data on 528 low-income families came from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD), a prospective longitudinal study that followed US children born in 1991 through age 15, assessing their home environment and development at multiple points.

The researchers aggregated various individual parenting measures at different times in the child’s life into five “investment domains” and looked for associations between those parenting investments and children’s achievement and socio-emotional functioning over childhood and early adolescence. The five investment domains and significant findings are summarized below:

• “Safety and sustenance” measured the physical environment, breastfeeding and the child’s own reports of feeling safe.

Breastfeeding predicted vocabulary scores at 4½ years and at 11 years old.

The quality of the physical environment in the home predicted vocabulary scores at 4½ years, and children’s feelings of safety predicted vocabulary scores at 11 years old.

• “Structure” included dinner-time habits, parental efforts to take part in their adolescent’s learning, and mothers’ progressive child rearing beliefs.

Progressive child rearing beliefs, balancing behavioral control and encouraging autonomy,  were associated with lower vocabulary skills at 11 years old and 15 years old. In other studies, progressive parenting beliefs are associated with better academic skills, but perhaps in low-income contexts, less belief in autonomy is a necessary adaptation.

• “Surveillance” was comprised of mother and child reports of parental monitoring.

Maternal monitoring predicted greater achievement and fewer behavioral problems at 15 years of age, both externalizing (e.g., anger, disruptive behaviour) and internalising (e.g. ,withdrawal, sadness).The link with fewer internalizing behavioural problems is greater than has been found in middle-income families in other studies, suggesting that greater supervision and monitoring may be particularly effective for ensuring the well-being of youth in low-income families.

• “Learning stimulation” included a wide range of measures, such as encouragement of early language skills, the presence of learning toys and materials, and cognitively stimulating mother-child interactions.

Learning stimulation was the strongest predictor of achievement at all ages, particularly at 4½ years, though more so for vocabulary skills than for math skills.

• “Socioemotional support” included positive parent-child communication, parent’s responsiveness to the child, avoidance of harsh punishment, good order in the household and maternal sensitivity during mother-child interactions.

Socioemotional support did not predict achievement at 4½ years of age, but it did predict fewer behaviour problems at 11 and 15 years. In particular, greater household order when the child was eight years old predicted fewer externalizing problems at both age 11 and 15 years.

Contrary to the predictions of the researchers, early childhood parenting investments between birth and five years old did not have a greater impact than later investments during middle childhood and early adolescence. This finding suggests that cumulative investments over time that the most difference in compensating for the harm posed by poverty in early childhood.

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The study used data on 4,240 boys from the larger and socially representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) in USA. About 20% of the sample was African American, 26% Hispanic and 54% Caucasian.

When the children were two years old, fathers reported on three aspects of fatherhood: warm and loving interactions, control and discipline, and home learning stimulation (e.g., reading with the child). When the children were three, they participated in cognitive tests (language and math) and test of social and emotional development (how much they engaged in a play exercise with their mother).

Fathers who showed warmth and who participated in home learning activities were more likely to have boys who had higher reading and math scores and who showed greater engagement with the game in the social and emotional development test. Paternal warmth predicted less negative behavior in the same test.

Only for African American fathers was there a link between increased control and discipline and a higher math score and a higher social and emotional development score.

This finding contradicts earlier studies, but those studies combined races and also sons and daughters, perhaps hiding variation by gender and race. There is a great deal of interest in the role that father-son relationships play in African American families, and other studies have shown that positive father-son relationships predict better behavior in school by African American boys.

This study also found that poverty reduced the link between paternal warmth and boys’ reading scores, corresponding with other evidence suggesting that affluence improves children’s literacy skills.

Though these aspects weren’t the focus of the study, the data also showed that the strongest predictor of boys’ cognitive and social emotional development was the level of education of both their mothers and fathers, and that the number of children living in the home was the strongest predictor of lower scores.

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• Participation in learning activities with parents, including book reading, storytelling, and playing counting and board games.
• The quality of parent-child interactions. If parents are responsive and sensitive, and provide rich language input (for example, naming and describing objects, events and actions), children develop better language skills.
• The availability of learning materials in the home, including children’s books, toys that encourage imaginative play (such as, toy telephones, tea sets), and toys that encourage fine motor skills and spatial cognition (such as blocks and puzzles).

These three features are important irrespective of different parenting styles that are known to exist between different ethnic groups.

We wanted to go further and ask whether the home learning environment in the first years of life contributes to children’s academic performance up to 10 years later, at the age of 10-11. To do so, we followed an ethnically diverse group of 2,204 low-income families, drawn from an evaluation study of Early Head Start in the USA that started in the late 1990s.

We used various standardised measures during home visits in the child’s first three years, including filming and coding the quality of mother-child play interactions involving age-appropriate toys, such as animal sets, cooking sets, cash register and grocery items, cookie cutter and rolling pin, and Play-Doh. When the child was 10-11 (in fifth grade), we carried out tests on language, reading, and math. We also interviewed mothers extensively about their children’s engagement in learning activities such as book reading, and their access to various learning materials.

We found a strong correlation between the early home learning environment and language, literacy and math skills when the child was 10-11. These associations were the same for all ethnic groups.

We also measured children’s language and cognitive skills on entering school at age 4. We found that the home learning environment explained children’s scores on these early abilities, and thus gave children the foundational skills required to do well in school at age 10-11. Children’s language and cognitive skills at preschool age accounted for 91% of the correlation between the early home learning environment and their abilities at age 10-11.

Finally, we measured the home learning environment when the child was 10-11, again using standardised measures, replacing the mother-child play activity with a discussion task. We found that a child who starts with a good home learning environment is likely to have a positive learning environment throughout childhood. The later home learning environment accounted for 9% of the correlation between the early home learning environment and abilities at age 10-11.

Our research highlights how important the early home learning environment is. Growing up in poverty has been shown to diminish home learning assets—which is one reason children growing up in poverty are likely to lag behind in language and cognitive skills. Supporting the home learning environment during the first years is a way to mitigate the long-term disadvantages of early poverty for children’s long-term prospects.

We should note that we observed only correlations. Causation could work both ways. For example, a more able and communicative child may elicit more responsiveness from parents.

One theory to explain the link between early experiences and later academic ability is a “cascade model” – if children develop early language and cognitive skills, then they will learn and develop faster throughout all of their childhood. Children with better vocabularies process new information faster, learn new words faster and learn to read faster. Their IQs are likely to be higher.

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