Children’s emotional abilities have been shown to be related to academic performance, peer acceptance, and in-school adjustment. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of innovative emotion training designed to promote the emotional abilities of 316 preschool/kindergarten children aged from 3 to 6 years old enrolled in public schools in the first three levels (L1, L2, and L3). Another objective was to examine the transfer effects on language comprehension and mathematics abilities. The emotion training (eight sessions) focused on the identification, comprehension, and expression of emotions and were co-constructed with teachers. Children were tested before and after the training on emotion, language, and mathematics skills. Results showed an improvement in emotional abilities in young children of L1 (3–4 years) and L2 (4–5 years) in the intervention group compared to those in the non-intervention group. Also, although children’s emotion basic abilities were correlated with their language comprehension and mathematics abilities, the nature of this link was not demonstrated to be causal. Findings are discussed in regard to the influence of the level and in regard to links with academic variables.

The objective of the present study was to explore the acquisition of mathematical vocabulary by French preschoolers. Two tasks involving quantitative and spatial vocabulary (one focused on production and the other focused on comprehension) were administered to 128 children aged 3 to 6. The children came from a monolingual vs. multilingual environment and from an advantaged vs. disadvantaged socio-economic family background. The tasks were administered in the language of instruction (French language). Our results revealed an effect of the linguistic environment: children from a multilingual environment performed worse in the production of mathematical words and concepts (and especially spatial ones) than children from a monolingual environment. Furthermore, children from disadvantaged backgrounds performed worse than children from advantaged backgrounds in the comprehension and concept production tasks. Lastly, we observed an interaction between the socio-economic environment and the linguistic factor in the comprehension task. The present results might prompt new ideas and initiatives with regard to the content of educational programs.