[msvana]

At the beginning, the article mentions correlation with language skills AND problem-solving. Focusing only on language skills in the second half is misleading. According to the abstract of the original paper, problem solving and working memory capacity were FAR MORE important.

Also, the article doesn't mention "math skills". It talks about numeracy, which is defined in a cited paper as "the ability to understand, manipulate, and use numerical information, including probabilities". This is only a very small part of mathematics. I would even argue that mathematics involves a lot of problem solving and since problem solving is a good predictor, math skills are good predictor.

[scarecrw]

Going further, it seems like Language Aptitude was primarily significant in explaining variance in learning rate, measured by how many Codecademy lessons they completed in the allotted time, but wasn't explanatory for learning outcomes based on writing code or answering multiple-choice questions.

Seeing as Codecademy lessons are written in English, I would think this may just be a result of participants with higher Language Aptitude being faster readers.

I do think that language skills are undervalued for programming, if only for their impact on your ability to read and write documentations or specifications, but I'm not sure this study is demonstrating that link in a meaningful way.