1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«The current study focuses on earlymaternal autonomy support and infant general cognitive abilities as antecedents of mathematical achievement growth during early elementary school.» (p. 1)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
«The sample consisted of 113 mother-child dyads (62 girls, 51 boys). Participants were recruited when children were 7 months old from random birth lists of a large metropolitan area [in Quebec] provided by the Ministry of Health and Social Services.» (p. 3)

Instruments :
Questionnaire

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

Results show in particular «that the effect of autonomy support on mathematical achievement manifests itself differently according to children’s initial general cognitive abilities. Children with lower general cognitive abilities in infancy had better mathematical achievement in first grade when they had more autonomy-supportive mothers. However, these children’s subsequent mathematics learning rate did not differ (i.e., was neither faster nor slower) from those who had less autonomy-supportive mothers. In contrast, children who had higher general cognitive abilities in infancy did not have better mathematical achievement in first grade when they benefitted from more maternal autonomy support, but they displayed faster learning between the first and third years of elementary school.» (p. 6-7) Results also show that there «are different ways in which maternal autonomy support may promote the acquisition of pre-mathematical knowledge in children. A first hypothesis is that autonomy-supportive parents may provide more hands-on numeracy experiences to their preschool children. In line with this hypothesis, collaborative parent-child interactions, which include parent-child discussions and entail involving the child while performing a task, are associated with higher frequency of home numeracy activities […]. Likewise, autonomy support includes collaboration by ensuring that the child plays an active role in the task and using verbally-supportive behaviors, and thus may also be associated with higher frequency of parent-child numeracy activities.» (p. 8)