Disentangling Schooling and Age Effects on Children’s Brain Networks of Early Reading and Arithmetic

At the ages 5 to 7, there are massive developmental changes in children’s neurocognitive functioning and brain development. These changes also coincide with the transition to formal education in primary school, during which there is a major change in modes of instruction from learning via less-structured playful activities in kindergarten, to learning via more structured and formal direct instruction in first grade. A critical question is how much the experience of formal schooling itself, as compared with age-related maturational changes, explains these developmental changes at the levels of behaviour and brain. This question is particularly left unanswered in the field of mathematical cognition. The current proposal will significantly move the needle by using the school cut-off design, a (quasi-) experimental approach to disentangle schooling- related vs. age-related maturational influences on children’s development. This will be done by comparing the degree of change in arithmetic, its cognitive predictors and its associated brain networks at two time points, separated by one year, in children who just missed or made the cut-off for school entry. Three work packages will investigate how the experience of schooling changes (1) arithmetic and its cognitive predictors, (2) brain activity during arithmetic and (3) brain structures supporting arithmetic. This will be done by contrasting three hypotheses on the effects of schooling.