There is a substantial amount of evidence linking working memory
to mathematical performance in children. Yet, two cognitive resources
theorized to be central to theworkingmemory system, short-termstorage
of information and regulation of attention, have rarely been measured
separately in studies of children's mathematics achievement.
The small body ofwork 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-termstorage
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 cognitivemeasure of inattentionwere
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.