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ABSTRACT
The present study examined patterns of number-related utterances and actions directed to 9-month-old infants by their parents. An ethnically and economically diverse sample of 86 families participated in structured play sessions conducted separately with the mothers and fathers of each infant. Data were coded for eight math talk categories, and these codes were analyzed for frequency, as well as complexity (number of categories mentioned within each 30-sec time interval) and diversity (number of categories mentioned across the entire play session). Number-related utterances and actions were frequent, with cardinality, one-to-one correspondence, and non-numerical quantitative terms (e.g., some, less) being most frequent. Mothers and fathers both provided frequent and diverse input, though mothers provided significantly more math talk than fathers for abstract counting and equivalence/non-equivalence, and mothers mentioned significantly more categories overall than fathers. Both non-numerical quantitative relations and cardinality were significantly associated with children’s preschool numeracy outcomes, though the association was negative for cardinality. Furthermore, fathers’ numeracy input and mothers’ total talk were also significantly and positively associated with children’s numeracy outcomes.
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2024.2303760.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Although “math talk” and the “home mathematics environment” are broad constructs that, on some views, encompass a range of skills including numeracy, spatial skills, and arithmetic (e.g., Melzi et al., Citation2022; Mendelsohn et al., Citation2023; Purpura, Napoli, Wehrspann, & Gold, Citation2017), we focus exclusively on input that pertains to numeracy and number concepts.
2 We also coded for arithmetic (i.e., adding or subtracting) but only six observations were noted across the entire dataset (one each from six different families) so we excluded this category from our analyses.