This book explores mathematical learning and cognition in early childhood from interdisciplinary perspectives, including developmental psychology, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and education. It examines how infants and young children develop numerical and mathematical skills, why some children struggle to acquire basic abilities, and how parents, caregivers, and early childhood educators can promote early mathematical development. The first section of the book focuses on infancy and toddlerhood with a particular emphasis on the home environment and how parents can foster early mathematical skills to prepare their children for formal schooling. The second section examines topics in preschool and kindergarten, such as the development of counting procedures and principles, the use of mathematics manipulatives in instruction, and the impacts of early intervention. The final part of the book focuses on particular instructional approaches in the elementary school years, such as different additive concepts, schema-based instruction, and methods of division. Chapters analyze the ways children learn to think about, work with, and master the language of mathematical concepts, as well as provide effective approaches to screening and intervention.
Included among the topics:
- The relationship between early gender differences and future mathematical learning and participation.
- The connection between mathematical and computational thinking.
- Patterning abilities in young children.
- Supporting children with learning difficulties and intellectual disabilities.
- The effectiveness of tablets as elementary mathematics education tools.
Mathematical Learning and Cognition in Early Childhood is an essential resource for researchers, graduate students, and professionals in infancy and early childhood development, child and school psychology, neuroscience, mathematics education, educational psychology, and social work.
Katherine M. Robinson, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Psychology at Campion College at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan. She received her B.A. from Bishop’s University and M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of Alberta. Her research focuses on cognitive development with special emphases on the development of conceptual and procedural knowledge in arithmetic in both children and adults.
Helena P. Osana, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Education and Research Chair in Mathematical Cognition and Instruction at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec. She received her B.Sc. from McGill University, M.A. from the University of British Columbia, and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. She conducts research on the instructional factors that impact children’s mathematical thinking. Her recent work centres on the impacts of external knowledge representations, including manipulatives, on children’s learning and transfer in elementary mathematics. She is a member of the Center for Research in Human Development at Concordia University.
Donna Kotsopoulos, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Science at Huron University (Western University), London, Canada. She received her B.A. and B.Ed. at York University, and her M.Ed. and Ph.D. at the University of Western Ontario. Her research focuses on early mathematical cognition and learning, and organizational behaviour. Her research has resulted in social innovation with the LittleCounters® program – a community and early child care center, play-based early numeracy program. She is the Director of the Mathematical Brains Laboratory and she is the co-Director of the Mathematics Knowledge Network (Ministry of Education, Ontario).
