The role of executive attention in the acquisition of mathematical skills for children in Grades 2 through 4 Jo-Anne LeFevre a,b,⇑ , Lindsay Berrigan a,1 , Corrie Vendetti a , Deepthi Kamawar a,b , Jeffrey Bisanz c , Sheri-Lynn Skwarchuk d , Brenda L. Smith-Chant e a Department of Psychology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1S 5B6 b Institute of Cognitive Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1S 5B6 c Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E9 d Faculty of Education, University of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3B 2E9 e Department of Psychology, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada K9J 7B8 article info Article history: Received 1 May 2012 Revised 10 October 2012 Available online 17 November 2012 Keywords: Executive attention Mathematics Arithmetic Longitudinal development Children Cognitive development Growth abstract We examined the role of executive attention, which encompasses the common aspects of executive function and executive working memory, in children’s acquisition of two aspects of mathematical skill: (a) knowledge of the number system (e.g., place value) and of arithmetic procedures (e.g., multi-digit addition) and (b) arith- metic fluency (i.e., speed of solutions to simple equations such as 3 + 4 and 8  5). Children in Grades 2 and 3 (N = 157) completed executive attention and mathematical tasks. They repeated the mathematical tasks 1 year later. We used structural equation mod- eling to examine the relations between executive attention and (a) concurrent measures of mathematical knowledge and arithmetic fluency and (b) growth in performance on these measures 1 year later. Executive attention was concurrently predictive of both knowledge and fluency but predicted growth in performance only for fluency. A composite language measure predicted growth in knowledge from Grade 2 to Grade 3. The results support an impor- tant role for executive attention in children’s acquisition of novel procedures and the development of automatic access to arithmetic facts. Ó 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 0022-0965/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2012.10.005 ⇑ Corresponding author at: Institute of Cognitive Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1S 3B6. E-mail address: jo-anne_lefevre@carleton.ca (J.-A. LeFevre). 1 Current address: Department of Psychiatry, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 2E2. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 114 (2013) 243–261 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Experimental Child Psychology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jecp