Researchers investigating mathematical development do so from different perspectives. Disciplines such as education, psychology and neuroscience have focused on mathematical learning and motivation, but research in these fields has tended to be conducted independently. Although different research strategies and methodologies are employed in each discipline, similar research questions inform these approaches and findings from these areas are complementary. In this session, the authors consider two examples from the field of research on mathematical development and present some relevant research developments from psychology and neuroscience. Their first example focuses on how very young children begin to acquire mathematics concepts. In their second example, they discuss the phenomenon of mathematics anxiety and its impact on children’s learning of mathematics. The authors’ overarching goal is to illustrate how findings from psychology and neuroscience may be used to better understand the processes underlying children’s learning of mathematics, and to suggest how these findings might be applicable to mathematical behaviour in the classroom.