Language does arithmetic: linguistic differences in children's place-value processing

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Linguistics
• Mathematics Education

Background:

• Multiplication fact retrieval is influenced by language, particularly number word inversion (e.g., German 'dreiundzwanzig' for 23).
• Prior research explored linguistic influences on multiplication in adults.
• The impact of number word inversion on children's place-value processing in multiplication remains less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effects of linguistic number word inversion on place-value processing during multiplication in children.
• To compare multiplication fact retrieval strategies between German- and Italian-speaking elementary school children.

Main Methods:

• A choice task involving 46 German- and Italian-speaking children solving multiplication problems.
• Analysis of decade-consistency and table-relatedness effects on multiplication performance.
• Comparison of performance patterns between the two language groups.

Main Results:

• Established effects like decade-consistency and table-relatedness were observed in children.
• The effect of table-relatedness was significantly larger for decade-consistent items in Italian-speaking children compared to German-speaking children.
• German-speaking children showed less emphasis on the tens digit in multiplication compared to Italian-speaking children.

Conclusions:

• Language-specific number word inversion influences children's multiplication fact retrieval and place-value processing.
• The German linguistic structure, with its inversion property, appears to reduce the salience of the tens digit for German-speaking children.
• Findings highlight the crucial role of language in the development of mathematical cognition.