A study on the correlation between language and numerical skills in Italian pre-schoolers
Virginia Flori
Given the importance that language and numerical skills have in everyday life, these skills have been widely studied individually, but only recently has their relationship during development been investigated. Existing studies in literature propose a close relationship between language and numerical cognition, but these are all studies conducted on foreign samples. Our research, therefore, aims to verify whether the results obtained from studies conducted on other populations are replicable on a sample of Italian pre-schoolers. To answer our question, we used a battery for the evaluation of numerical intelligence (BIN 4-6 years), an equivalent battery under validation for younger children, a phono-lexical test (TFL) and Raven’s Coloured Progressive Matrices (CPM). We analysed the raw scores through descriptive analyses and Spearman’s correlations and then compared our results with those present in literature. Finally, we discussed the limits of our research and we suggested some possible paths to follow for future studies.
Keywords
Numerical cognition, Production, Comprehension, Pre-schoolers, Correlational research.