Bilingualism and numeracy: Does language matter?

Numerical processing and calculation skills constitute an important aspect of school learning but there arestill relatively few studies thathave investigated these skills in pupils with a bilingual profile exposed to Italian as a second language.In this contribution, after a brief presentation of the main theoretical models of numberprocessing,therelationshipsbetweenlinguisticandnumericalskillswillbe illustratedconsideringthemainpredictorsofnumericalskills,themathematicallex-icon, the relationship between language and numerical cognition and with an in-depth analysis of the assessment of math skills, which may involve symbolic, non-symbolic processes and problem-solving skills. A reflection follows on the role of environmental variables in the development of numerical and calculation skills. Fi-nally, implications for educational and clinical contextsare discussed