Visuo-spatial abilities are key for children’s verbal number skills

Verbal number skills (i.e. counting and number naming) are milestones in numerical development. The aim of the present study was to clarify the role of different verbal abilities (VA) and visuo-spatial abilities (VSA) in the development of these verbal number skills in kindergarten. We recruited 152 children (mean age: 5.8 years) and administered different measures of VA (e.g. phonological awareness, pseudoword recall) and of VSA (e.g. spatial perception, copying) to assess their contribution to verbal number skills. Firstly, we computed two independent regression models, a “VA only” model explaining 23% of variance, and a “VSA only” model explaining 38% of variance. Adding verbal measures to the “VSA only” model does not lead to a significant increase in R2. Our results show that VSA, rather than VA, contribute to a larger extent to children’s verbal number skills. Intriguingly, the development of verbal number skills builds on VA, but more importantly on VSA. These results are potentially informative for the conception early mathematics interventions