5. Conclusions
There is a substantial amount of evidence linking working memory
to mathematical performance in children. Yet, two cognitive resources
theorized to be central to the working memory system, short-term storage
of information and regulation of attention, have rarely been measured
separately in studies of children's mathematics achievement.
The small body of work that has captured this distinction has yielded inconsistent findings and has mainly relied on informant reports of inattentive behavior. The present investigation was the first to longitudinally examine children's mathematics achievement as a function of their early capacities for short-term storage and attention, using both informant reports and a direct assessment of attention. Short-term storage and the performance-based measure of attention predicted differences in mathematics achievement prior to school entry, and these differences were sustained through grade 5, even after accounting for demographic characteristics and verbal intelligence. Of note, the informant-based measure of attention was not related to mathematics achievement before kindergarten or across elementary school once individual differences in storage capacity and the cognitive measure of inattention were considered. These findings suggest that several cognitive measures taken early in childhood could identify students who may be at risk for underachieving in mathematics, and might facilitate the design of early interventions and later monitoring of such students.t