Browsing by Author "Tetri, Minna"

The aim of this study was to investigate how the language comprehension of 3-4-year-old children is related to early numeracy skills. Language has been shown to be a strong predictor of overall mathematical development, but previous research on such young Finnish-speaking children is still limited or the association has not been examined in detail across domains. This study will provide information on whether the association can be used in the future to identify children with low numeracy skills, which will be useful for early and appropriate targeting of interventions. The study data consisted of the results of the Lene test (neurodevelopmental screening method for toddlers and preschoolers), the Early numeracy test and the Lukiva test for 3-year-old children (N= 157) and 4-year-old children (N= 190) obtained in the initial sample of the Toimi ja Opi research in 2019. Correlations and linear regression analysis were used to examine the relationship between early language comprehension and early mathematical skills. Data analysis was carried out using SPSS Statistics version 26. Results and conclusions. The results of the study support previous research on the link between early language comprehension and early numeracy skills. The strongest and clearest association was found between language comprehension skills and mathematical relationship skills. The language comprehension of a 4-year-old child explained 53% of the variation in mathematical relationship skills of the same age. Another strong association was found between early reading skills and counting skills in a 4-year-old child, with a 47% explanatory power for early reading skills. This finding suggests that in the future ECEC should pay attention to the mathematical relationship skills of children with language comprehension challenges and target support to develop these skills. Early and well-targeted support prevents mathematical learning difficulties later.