How Children Learn the Value of Numbers
Author Information
Author(s): Michael Ramscar, Melody Dye, Hanna Popick, Fiona Muenke O'Donnell-McCarthy
Primary Institution: Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States of America
Hypothesis
Can manipulating the typical information structure of words in English improve children's understanding of number?
Conclusion
Children can significantly improve their understanding of number words when the information structure in training supports competitive discrimination learning.
Supporting Evidence
- Children trained with postnominal phrasing showed significant improvement in matching number words to set sizes.
- Children's performance improved on both trained and untrained number sets after FL training.
- Pre-test scores indicated that children had some experience with number words but struggled with accurate mapping.
Takeaway
Kids learn numbers better when they see a group of objects before hearing the number, rather than the other way around.
Methodology
The study involved a training experiment with 56 children aged 30 to 40 months, comparing two training conditions: one where children saw objects before hearing their number (FL) and one where they heard the number before seeing the objects (LF).
Potential Biases
Potential biases may arise from the children's prior exposure to number words and the specific training methods used.
Limitations
The study focused only on typically developing, monolingual English learners, which may limit the generalizability of the findings.
Participant Demographics
Participants were 56 typically developing, monolingual English learners aged 30 to 40 months, with 30 females and 26 males.
Statistical Information
P-Value
p<0.001
Statistical Significance
p<0.05
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
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