Early arithmetic: the role of domain specific and domain general skills

Objectives: Previous studies demonstrated that children calculation abilities depend on the arithmetic task format (e.g. non-verbal problem) and it has been suggested that diverse formats may require diverse abilities. Nevertheless, few studies investigate concurrently the domain specific, and domain general abilities requested in solving diverse calculations. The current study aims to compare the performance on diverse problem formats and to investigate the relationship of the diverse problem format performance with domain specific and domain general skills. Methods: 145 typically developing children of five-year of age were administered the same additions proposed on diverse format (non-verbal problem, number fact problem, story problem) and number sense, fluid intelligence, language, visuo-constructive skills, inhibition and working memory tasks; age and mother education were also considered. Results: As expected, children performed differently on the diverse problems. The order of difficulty was: non-verbal problems, story problems, number fact problems. More interestingly, the performance on the diverse problems were differently associated to the other variables. Specifically, when the diverse problem format performances were considered as dependent variables in multiple linear regression analysis (stepwise method), the results revealed that diverse factors entered as significant predictors and working memory and inhibition accounted for the most difficult problem format. Conclusions: Children arithmetic performance vary according to the problem format and not to the calculation requested. Additionally, domain specific and domain general factors are differently related to the diverse problem format.