Cognitive abilities as precursors of the early acquisition of mathematical skills

Specific role of the domain-general and domain-specific precursors in the development of early mathematics is still under debate. In addition, there is no general agreement about the detection of the main components of domain-specific precursors. The aim of the present work is to get more insight in the role played by a fundamental domain-general precursor, the working memory, in the development of mathematical skills. Other goal for this paper is to propose a general framework for the classification of domain-specific precursors of mathematical learning.