Give yourself a hand: The role of gesture and working memory in preschoolers' numerical knowledge

Raychel Gordon; Nicole R Scalise; Geetha B Ramani

doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105145

Give yourself a hand: The role of gesture and working memory in preschoolers' numerical knowledge

J Exp Child Psychol. 2021 Aug:208:105145. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105145. Epub 2021 Apr 10.

Authors

Raychel Gordon¹, Nicole R Scalise², Geetha B Ramani³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD 20742, USA. Electronic address: rjgordon@umd.edu.
² Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD 20742, USA; Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92617, USA.
³ Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD 20742, USA.

PMID: 33848695
DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105145

Abstract

Hand gestures can be beneficial in math contexts to reduce the user's cognitive load by supporting domain-general abilities such as working memory. Although prior work has shown a strong relation between young children's early math performance and their general cognitive abilities, it is important to consider how children's working memory ability may relate to their use of spontaneous gesture as well as their math-specific abilities. The current study examined how preschool-aged children's gesture use and working memory relate to their performance on an age-appropriate math task. Head Start preschoolers (N = 81) were videotaped while completing a modified version of the Give-N task to measure their cardinality understanding. Children also completed a forward word span task and a computerized Corsi Block task to assess their working memory. The results showed that children's spontaneous gesture use and working memory were related to their performance on the cardinality task. However, children's gestures were not significantly related to working memory after controlling for age. Findings suggest that young children from low-income backgrounds use gestures during math contexts in similar ways to preschoolers from higher-income backgrounds.

Keywords: Cardinality; Gesture; Head Start; Math; Preschool; Working Memory.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Child
Child, Preschool
Gestures*
Humans
Knowledge
Mathematics
Memory, Short-Term*
Videotape Recording