Children's understanding of demonstratives: an experimental study with German-speaking children between 5 and 7 years of age.

Demonstratives ("this"/"that") express a speaker-relative distance contrast and need to be substituted for each other systematically: depending on their relative position, what one speaker refers to by saying "this" another speaker has to refer to by saying "that." This substitution aspect of demonstratives poses additional difficulties for learning demonstratives, because it requires recognizing that two speakers have to refer to the same thing with different words, and might be one reason for the reportedly protracted acquisition of demonstratives. In an online study conducted in German, it was investigated whether children in the estimated upper age range of demonstrative acquisition (5 to 7 years) understand demonstratives' substitution aspect with familiar ("dies"/"das") and novel ("schmi"/"schmu") demonstratives, and whether they understand novel words ("schmi"/"schmu") when used non-demonstratively as labels ( = 73; between-subject).

Investigating the influence of body movements on children's mental arithmetic performance.

Several lines of research have demonstrated spatial-numerical associations in both adults and children, which are thought to be based on a spatial representation of numerical information in the form of a mental number line. The acquisition of increasingly precise mental number line representations is assumed to support arithmetic learning in children. It is further suggested that sensorimotor experiences shape the development of number concepts and arithmetic learning, and that mental arithmetic can be characterized as "motion along a path" and might constitute shifts in attention along the mental number line.

Children's spatial language skills predict their verbal number skills: A longitudinal study.

The process of number symbolization is assumed to be critically influenced by the acquisition of so-called verbal number skills (e.g., verbally reciting the number chain and naming Arabic numerals).

Children's use of egocentric reference frames in spatial language is related to their numerical magnitude understanding.

Numerical magnitude information is assumed to be spatially represented in the form of a defined with respect to a body-centred, egocentric frame of reference. In this context, spatial language skills such as mastery of verbal descriptions of spatial position (e.g.

Why Not Just Features? Reconsidering Infants' Behavior in Individuation Tasks.

It counts as empirically proven that infants can individuate objects. Object individuation is assumed to be fundamental in the development of infants' ontology within the object-first account. It crucially relies on an object-file (OF) system, representing both spatiotemporal ("where") and categorical ("what") information about objects as solid, cohesive bodies moving continuously in space and time.

Hierarchical Development of Early Visual-Spatial Abilities - A Taxonomy Based Assessment Using the MaGrid App.

Visual-spatial abilities (VSA) are considered a building block of early numerical development. They are intuitively acquired in early childhood and differentiate in further development. However, when children enter school, there already are considerable individual differences in children's visual-spatial and numerical abilities.

Thinking about time and number: An application of the dual-systems approach to numerical cognition.

Based on the notion that time, space, and number are part of a generalized magnitude system, we assume that the dual-systems approach to temporal cognition also applies to numerical cognition. Referring to theoretical models of the development of numerical concepts, we propose that children's early skills in processing numbers can be described analogously to temporal updating and temporal reasoning.

Mental Number Representations in 2D Space.

There is evidence both for mental number representations along a horizontal mental number line with larger numbers to the right of smaller numbers (for Western cultures) and a physically grounded, vertical representation where "more is up." Few studies have compared effects in the horizontal and vertical dimension and none so far have combined both dimensions within a single paradigm where numerical magnitude was task-irrelevant and none of the dimensions was primed by a response dimension. We now investigated number representations over both dimensions, building on findings that mental representations of numbers and space co-activate each other.

Differences in Counting Skills Between Chinese and German Children Are Accompanied by Differences in Processing of Approximate Numerical Magnitude Information.

Human beings are supposed to possess an approximate number system (ANS) dedicated to extracting and representing approximate numerical magnitude information as well as an object tracking system (OTS) for the rapid and accurate enumeration of small sets. It is assumed that the OTS and the ANS independently contribute to the acquisition of more elaborate numerical concepts. Chinese children have been shown to exhibit more elaborate numerical concepts than their non-Chinese peers, but it is still an open question whether similar cross-national differences exist with regard to the underlying systems, namely the ANS and the OTS.

The influence of visual-spatial skills on the association between processing of nonsymbolic numerical magnitude and number word sequence skills.

Nonsymbolic numerical magnitude processing skills are assumed to be fundamental to mathematical learning. Recent findings suggest that visual-spatial skills account for associations between children's performance in visually presented nonsymbolic numerical magnitude comparison tasks and their performance in visually presented arithmetic tasks. The aim of the current study was to examine whether associations between children's performance in visually presented tasks assessing nonsymbolic numerical magnitude processing skills and their performance in tasks assessing early mathematical skills, which do not involve visual stimulation, may also be mediated by visual-spatial skills.

Exploring factors underlying children's acquisition and retrieval of sound-symbol association skills.

Letter knowledge is considered an important cognitive foundation for learning to read. The underlying mechanisms of the association between letter knowledge and reading skills are, however, not fully understood. Acquiring letter knowledge depends on the ability to learn and retrieve sound-symbol pairings.

Differences in arithmetic performance between Chinese and German adults are accompanied by differences in processing of non-symbolic numerical magnitude.

Human beings are assumed to possess an approximate number system (ANS) dedicated to extracting and representing approximate numerical magnitude information. The ANS is assumed to be fundamental to arithmetic learning and has been shown to be associated with arithmetic performance. It is, however, still a matter of debate whether better arithmetic skills are reflected in the ANS.

Differences in Arithmetic Performance between Chinese and German Children Are Accompanied by Differences in Processing of Symbolic Numerical Magnitude.

Symbolic numerical magnitude processing skills are assumed to be fundamental to arithmetic learning. It is, however, still an open question whether better arithmetic skills are reflected in symbolic numerical magnitude processing skills. To address this issue, Chinese and German third graders were compared regarding their performance in arithmetic tasks and in a symbolic numerical magnitude comparison task.

Erratum: Ultrahigh Bandwidth Spin Noise Spectroscopy: Detection of Large g-Factor Fluctuations in Highly-n-Doped GaAs [Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 186602 (2013)].

This corrects the article DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.

Text-fading based training leads to transfer effects on children's sentence reading fluency.

Previous studies used a text-fading procedure as a training tool with the goal to increase silent reading fluency (i.e., proficient reading rate and comprehension).

In how many ways is the approximate number system associated with exact calculation?

The approximate number system (ANS) has been consistently found to be associated with math achievement. However, little is known about the interactions between the different instantiations of the ANS and in how many ways they are related to exact calculation. In a cross-sectional design, we investigated the relationship between three measures of ANS acuity (non-symbolic comparison, non-symbolic estimation and non-symbolic addition), their cross-sectional trajectories and specific contributions to exact calculation.

The association between gray matter volume and reading proficiency: a longitudinal study of beginning readers.

Neural systems involved in the processing of written language have been identified by a number of functional imaging studies. Structural changes in cortical anatomy that occur in the course of literacy acquisition, however, remain largely unknown. Here, we follow elementary school children over their first 2 years of formal reading instruction and use tensor-based morphometry to relate reading proficiency to cortical volume at baseline and follow-up measurement as well as to intraindividual longitudinal volume development between the two measurement time points.

Ultrahigh bandwidth spin noise spectroscopy: detection of large g-factor fluctuations in highly-n-doped GaAs.

We advance all optical spin noise spectroscopy (SNS) in semiconductors to detection bandwidths of several hundred gigahertz by employing a sophisticated scheme of pulse trains from ultrafast laser oscillators as an optical probe. The ultrafast SNS technique avoids the need for optical pumping and enables nearly perturbation free measurements of extremely short spin dephasing times. We apply the technique to highly-n-doped bulk GaAs where magnetic field dependent measurements show unexpected large g-factor fluctuations.

Developmental changes in the association between approximate number representations and addition skills in elementary school children.

The approximate number system (ANS) is assumingly related to mathematical learning but evidence supporting this assumption is mixed. The inconsistent findings might be attributed to the fact that different measures have been used to assess the ANS and mathematical skills. Moreover, associations between the performance on a measure of the ANS and mathematical skills may be discontinuous, i.

Transcoding abilities in typical and atypical mathematics achievers: the role of working memory and procedural and lexical competencies.

Transcoding between numerical systems is one of the most basic abilities acquired by children during their early school years. One important topic that requires further exploration is how mathematics proficiency can affect number transcoding. The aim of the current study was to investigate transcoding abilities (i.

Spatial representations of numbers and letters in children.

Different lines of evidence suggest that children's mental representations of numbers are spatially organized in form of a mental number line. It is, however, still unclear whether a spatial organization is specific for the numerical domain or also applies to other ordinal sequences in children. In the present study, children (n = 129) aged 8-9 years were asked to indicate the midpoint of lines flanked by task-irrelevant digits or letters.

Rapid scanning of spin noise with two free running ultrafast oscillators.

We combine the scanning temporal ultrafast delay (STUD) technique with spin noise spectroscopy (SNS), which is based upon below band gap Faraday rotation to investigate the full temporal dynamics of stochastically orientated electron spins in slightly n-doped bulk GaAs. The application of STUD-SNS boosts the common technical bandwidth limitation of the electro-optic conversion in cw-SNS into the several hundred GHz regime. Numerical simulations highlight the strengths and examine the limitations of STUD-SNS.

Grey matter alterations co-localize with functional abnormalities in developmental dyslexia: an ALE meta-analysis.

The neural correlates of developmental dyslexia have been investigated intensively over the last two decades and reliable evidence for a dysfunction of left-hemispheric reading systems in dyslexic readers has been found in functional neuroimaging studies. In addition, structural imaging studies using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) demonstrated grey matter reductions in dyslexics in several brain regions. To objectively assess the consistency of these findings, we performed activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis on nine published VBM studies reporting 62 foci of grey matter reduction in dyslexic readers.

Micro and macro pattern analyses of FMRI data support both early and late interaction of numerical and spatial information.

Numbers and space are two semantic primitives that interact with each other. Both recruit brain regions along the dorsal pathway, notably parietal cortex. This makes parietal cortex a candidate for the origin of numerical-spatial interaction.

Rehabilitation of arithmetic fact retrieval via extensive practice: a combined fMRI and behavioural case-study.

The present study investigates the effects of a training of arithmetic fact retrieval in a patient suffering from particular difficulties with multiplication facts. Over a period of four weeks simple multiplication facts were trained extensively. The outcome of the training was assessed behaviourally and changes in cerebral activation patterns were investigated using fMRI.