Representing the number three at three years: A multidimensional analysis

EDUARDO MARTI; NORA SCHEUER; SILVIA CAVALCANTE; MAXIMO TRENCH

Chicago

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

Jean Piaget Society

Early steps in the symbolic development in the number domain seem to involve different symbolic tools and different situations (Mix, 2002). On this basis, we do not think that the approach children show to understand the various meanings and uses of number is a simple transfer of their perceptive competencies. Thus, instead of proposing a unique numerical competence we prefer to emphasize the multiple symbolic competencies children have to deal with numerical domain. The aim of the present study is to contribute to this multidimensional view of early symbolic number development. Seventy one children aged between 36 and 47 months participated in the research (33 girls and 38 boys). All are Spanish speaking: thirty three children come from Argentina (Bariloche) and thirty eight from Spain (Barcelona). Each child participated in four tasks: expression of age, recognizing the number of a collection of three dots, advancing a toy horse along a path according to the number of three dots and counting the steps of a path. Our results show that 3-year-old children present different symbolic competencies to deal with number three and their competences vary according to the task demand. Their pre-symbolic competencies have to be re-constructed in a symbolic level. In our presentation we show the variety of symbolic modalities used by three year olds.