Children learn non-exact number word meanings first

نویسندگان

  • Junyi Chu
  • Katie Wagner
  • David Barner
چکیده

Children acquire exact meanings for number words in distinct stages. First, they learn one, then two, and then three and sometimes four. Finally, children learn to apply the counting procedure to their entire count list. Although these stages are ubiquitous and well documented, the foundation of these meanings remains highly contested. Here we ask whether children assign preliminary meanings to number words before learning their exact meanings by examining their responses on the Give-a-Number task to numbers for which they do not yet have exact meanings. While several research groups have approached this question before, we argue that because these data do not usually conform to a normal distribution, typical methods of analysis likely underestimate their knowledge. Using non-parametric analyses, we show that children acquire non-exact meanings for small number words like one, two, three, four and possibly for higher numbers well before they acquire the exact meanings.

برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

منابع مشابه

Preschool children master the logic of number word meanings.

Although children take over a year to learn the meanings of the first three number words, they eventually master the logic of counting and the meanings of all the words in their count list. Here, we ask whether children's knowledge applies to number words beyond those they have mastered: Does a child who can only count to 20 infer that number words above 'twenty' refer to exact cardinal values?...

متن کامل

Connecting numbers to discrete quantification: a step in the child's construction of integer concepts.

The present study asks when young children understand that number words quantify over sets of discrete individuals. For this study, 2- to 4-year-old children were asked to extend the number word five or six either to a cup containing discrete objects (e.g., blocks) or to a cup containing a continuous substance (e.g., water). In Experiment 1, only children who knew the exact meanings of the word...

متن کامل

Does Grammatical Structure Accelerate Number Word Learning? Evidence from Learners of Dual and Non-Dual Dialects of Slovenian

How does linguistic structure affect children's acquisition of early number word meanings? Previous studies have tested this question by comparing how children learning languages with different grammatical representations of number learn the meanings of labels for small numbers, like 1, 2, and 3. For example, children who acquire a language with singular-plural marking, like English, are faster...

متن کامل

Two's Company: Examining Children's Early Meanings of the Word "Two"

ly to a property of the set of elephants (Papafragou & Musolino, 2002). To make matters worse, “two” can have multiple, even conflicting meanings. For example, when counting two blocks, a child must reconcile the fact that in the phrase, “one, two,” the word “two” represents both a tag for the second object and the total number of objects in that set. So why should one be interested in how chil...

متن کامل

From grammatical number to exact numbers: early meanings of 'one', 'two', and 'three' in English, Russian, and Japanese.

This study examined whether singular/plural marking in a language helps children learn the meanings of the words 'one,' 'two,' and 'three.' First, CHILDES data in English, Russian (which marks singular/plural), and Japanese (which does not) were compared for frequency, variability, and contexts of number-word use. Then young children in the USA, Russia, and Japan were tested on Counting and Giv...

متن کامل

ذخیره در منابع من


  با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید

برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

عنوان ژورنال:

دوره   شماره 

صفحات  -

تاریخ انتشار 2016