Representing number three at three years: A multidimensional analysis

MARTÍ, EDUARDO; SCHEUER, NORA; CAVALCANTE, SILVIA; TRENCH, MÁXIMO

Chicago

Congreso; 43rd Annual Meeting of the Jean Piaget Society; 2013

Jean Piaget Society

The goal of the present study was to compare a range of aspects in children?s symbolic knowledge about the number three among two groups of three-year-olds from contrasting socioeconomic backgrounds. Every child was presented with five tasks that focused on the number three and that had cognitive demands of different complexity: expressing their age, reciting the conventional number series up to three, quantifying a collection of three, and two tasks requiring the use of visually presented quantitative information. The results showed a clear order of difficulty of the tasks (the same order in both socioeconomic groups), as follows: reciting the conventional number series; expressing age; quantifying a collection of three; and use and selection of visual numerical information. The results also indicate a clear performance difference depending on socioeconomic background, with children in the higher socioeconomic group outperforming those in the lower socioeconomic group. These findings show that symbolic knowledge about the number three does not come in an all or none fashion. Rather, different aspects of this symbolic competence become apparent in response to different tasks, and seem to depend largely on the socioeconomic environment in which children develop.