Ecuadorian children’s repeating patterning abilities and its association with early mathematical abilities

Young children’s early repeating patterning abilities are important foundations for their later mathematical development. Prior studies on young children’s repeating patterning abilities have been conducted exclusively in developed countries differing in economic, societal, and educational characteristics from developing countries. In this study, we analyzed the performance and the errors of 4- to 5-year-olds on three repeating patterning tasks, and we investigated the association between children’s repeating patterning abilities and their early mathematical abilities in a developing country, Ecuador. A total of 60 preschoolers and 56 kindergartners completed a repeating patterning test and an early mathematics test at the end of the school year. Results first indicated rather low repeating patterning performances of both preschoolers and kindergartens, with large inter-individual differences in these performances. Kindergartners had significantly better patterning abilities than preschoolers. Second, error analyses indicated that children made different types of errors when solving the patterning tasks. The majority of errors were pattern-related errors, with preschoolers making more errors that were not pattern related than kindergarteners. Third, children’s patterning abilities were positively associated with early mathematical abilities in both grades. These results complement current theoretical models of young children’s mathematical development and inform educational policy and practices in this domain for developing countries.