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A growing body of research has examined how children’s self-regulation during early and middle childhood mediates SES disparities in academic achievement. Evidence suggests that these self-regulation skills begin developing even earlier, during the toddler years, but more work is needed examining how different measures of self-regulation relate to key constructs such as socioeconomic status (SES) and toddlers’ pre-academic skills. In this online study, we examine multiple approaches to measuring self-regulation using confirmatory factor analyses and assess the extent to which self-regulatory skills help explain SES differences in early math and language skills among a sample of 158 two- and three-year-old children. Self-regulation was assessed through a battery of parent- and examiner-ratings. Children’s counting, cardinality, and vocabulary skills were measured online through direct assessments and parent surveys. Two self-regulation factors emerged representing parent-reported and observational measures, and only observational measures of self-regulation mediated associations between SES and children’s math and language skills. Parent-reported self-regulation was not uniquely related to SES or children’s pre-academic skills, underscoring the need for careful consideration of how self-regulation is measured among toddlers when examining its associations with pre-academic skills.

Prior research has shown associations between parent and teacher feedback and school-aged children’s academic outcomes. Specifically, studies have demonstrated that positive feedback (i.e., praise and/or affirmation) is beneficial for children’s academic outcomes, while corrective feedback exhibits more mixed associations with children’s academic outcomes. Little is known about the relations between parental feedback and younger children’s academic skills. The present study examines the frequency of positive and corrective types of feedback provided by parents of 4-year-old children during semi-structured interactions, as well as how these feedback types relate to children’s concurrent math and language skills and their change in math skills over a one-year period. Parent-child dyads (n=91) were observed interacting with a picture book, grocery store set, and magnet board puzzle for 5 to 10 minutes each, after which they completed math and language assessments. Parental affirmation was positively and corrective feedback was negatively associated with children’s concurrent math outcomes, but only corrective feedback was uniquely negatively associated with children’s math outcomes when controlling for affirmations. Parental praise was individually and uniquely positively associated with children’s expressive vocabulary and change in math outcomes from age 4 to age 5. This study suggests that the relations between parental feedback and young children’s academic outcomes depend on the type of feedback and the outcome of interest (i.e., math vs language), which can inform how parents may want to provide feedback to facilitate learning.

The cognitive complexity of adults’ questions, particularly during shared book reading, supports children’s developing language skills. Questions can be described as having low cognitive demand (CD; e.g., labeling, matching) or high-CD (e.g., comparing, predicting). Little is known about the relation between different types of parental questioning and children’s math abilities. The current study examined the quantity of low- and high-CD and domain-specific math questions that parents posed to their 4-year-old children in three structured activities and how the frequency of those questions relates to children’s concurrent math and language skills. Parent–child dyads (n = 121) were observed interacting with a picture book, grocery store toys, and a puzzle for about 5 min each, and children completed math and spatial assessments. Although the frequency with which parents asked questions did not relate to children’s outcomes, parents’ use of high-CD questions was associated with children’s spatial skills, standardized math scores, and vocabulary skills after controlling for parental utterances, child utterances, child age, and family socioeconomic status. However, domain-specific math questions were not related to any child outcomes above and beyond parents’ total questions. This study suggests that domain-general questions that vary in CD (low and high) are differentially related to children’s math and language abilities, which can inform the ways in which parents engage in early learning opportunities with their children.

Previous research has found that even young children accurately assign wealth labels (e.g., rich or poor) to real-world wealth symbols, such as pictures of houses. However, it is unclear whether children spontaneously consider individuals' wealth status when predicting how they will behave toward others. In Study 1, children (n = 100, ages 4-5 and 7-8) predicted that residents of "rich" houses would be likelier to share toys than residents of "poor" houses. This effect was driven by children who viewed rich-house residents as owning more toys. Study 2 (n = 50) suggested that such children were not merely associating attractive objects with attractive behaviors. Rather, it seems that they possessed a conceptual understanding of wealth, which they used to make behavioral predictions. The belief that the rich are likely to share may relate to broader wealth-based preferences and may be elicited more frequently in children who spontaneously notice others' wealth status. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The proposal by Clarke and Beck offers a new explanation for the association between the approximate number system (ANS) and math. Previous explanations have largely relied on developmental arguments, an underspecified notion of the ANS as an “error detection mechanism,” or affective factors. The proposal that the ANS represents rational numbers suggests that it may directly support a broader range of math skills.