CHILDRENS ACQUISITION OF THE NUMBER WORDS AND THE COUNTING SYSTEM

This paper examines how and when children come to understand the way in which counting determines numerosity and learn the meanings of the number words. A 7-month longitudinal study of 2 and 3 year olds shows that, very early on, children already know that the counting words each refer to a distinct, unique numerosity, though they do not yet know to which numerosity each word refers. It is possible that children learn this in part from the syntax of the number words. Despite this early knowledge, however, it takes children a long time (on the order of a year) to learn how the counting system represents numerosity. This suggests that our initial concept of number is represented quite differently from the way the counting system represents number, making it a difficult task for children to map the one Onto the Other. © 1992.