Reexamining the language account of cross-national differences in base-10 number representations

•Kindergartners showed no cross-language variability in using base-10 representations.•The current results contrast with earlier findings obtained with older students.•Within-language performance varied with task instruction and target number.•Variability within languages was likely attributable to experiential factors.

East Asian students consistently outperform students from other nations in mathematics. One explanation for this advantage is a language account; East Asian languages, unlike most Western languages, provide cues about the base-10 structure of multi-digit numbers, facilitating the development of base-10 number representations. To test this view, the current study examined how kindergartners represented two-digit numbers using single unit-blocks and ten-blocks. The participants (N = 272) were from four language groups (Korean, Mandarin, English, and Russian) that vary in the extent of “transparency” of the base-10 structure. In contrast to previous findings with older children, kindergartners showed no cross-language variability in the frequency of producing base-10 representations. Furthermore, they showed a pattern of within-language variability that was not consistent with the language account and was likely attributable to experiential factors. These findings suggest that language might not play as critical a role in the development of base-10 representations as suggested in earlier research.