Phonological processing and spatial attention contribute to mathematics performance in different ways: A 3-year longitudinal study

This longitudinal study aimed to investigate the differential contributions of phonological processing and spatial attention skills to mathematical performance in Chinese children. The study involved the assessment of 184 children's phonological awareness, phonological memory, rapid automatized naming (RAN), visual-spatial sketchpad, and sustained attention during their kindergarten. Three years later, the same children were evaluated on tasks related to simple addition, non-symbolic comparison, number identification, complex word problems, and multi-digit arithmetic. Through path analysis, the study revealed that phonological awareness in kindergarten directly predicted later word problem-solving abilities. Additionally, simple addition mediated the relationship between visual-spatial working memory and multi-digit arithmetic performance, while number identification mediated the relationship between sustained attention and complex word problems. However, number processing skills did not mediate the relationship between phonological processing and mathematics performance. These findings contribute to our understanding of the complex interplay between visual-spatial skills, phonological processing skills, number processing, and mathematics performance.