The cognitive foundations of children’s mathematics achievement
Seminar Abstract
Early years mathematics skills predict children’s future academic, financial and general life success. Thus, it is crucial to identify and understand the cognitive factors that explain children’s individual differences in pre-school maths skills and the role that they play in setting the foundations for the development of their future mathematical achievement. In this talk, I will present a series of studies which identify various domain-general and mathematics-specific cognitive abilities as important early predictors of children’s mathematics achievement.
About the speaker
Dr Iro Xenidou-Dervou completed their undergraduate studies at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece (BSc in Psychology) and their masters at Leiden University in the Netherlands (Research MSc in Developmental Psychology). Following this, they completed their PhD with Cum Laude distinction at the Faculty of Psychology and Education at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands. My PhD` focused on the cognitive underpinnings of children’s mathematical skills. After that, they took up a one-year joint postdoctoral position with the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the KU Leuven (Belgium). Dr Iro Xenidou-Dervou started their current post as a Lecturer in Mathematical Cognition at the Mathematics Education Centre (MEC) at Loughborough University at the end of 2015. Their research focuses on children’s and adults’ mathematical cognition.