Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Faculty of Education, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain.
Center for Research in Child Development, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.
Dev Sci. 2024 Sep;27(5):e13529. doi: 10.1111/desc.13529. Epub 2024 May 15.
Mapping skills between different codes to represent numerical information, such as number symbols (i.e., verbal number words and written digits) and non-symbolic quantities, are important in the development of the concept of number. The aim of the current study is to investigate children's mapping skills by incorporating another numerical code that emerges at early stages in development, finger patterns. Specifically, the study investigates (i) the order in which mapping skills develop and the association with young children's understanding of cardinality; and (ii) whether finger patterns are processed similarly to symbolic codes or rather as non-symbolic quantities. Preschool children (3-year-olds, N = 113, M = 40.8 months, SD = 3.6 months; 4-year-olds, N = 103, M = 52.9 months, SD = 3.4 months) both cardinality knowers and subset-knowers, were presented with twelve tasks that assessed the mappings between number words, Arabic digits, finger patterns, and quantities. The results showed that children's ability to map symbolic numbers precedes the understanding that such symbols reflect quantities, and that children recognize finger patterns above their cardinality knowledge, suggesting that finger patterns are symbolic in essence. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Children are more accurate in mapping between finger patterns and symbols (number words and Arabic digits) than in mapping finger patterns and quantities, indicating that fingers are processed holistically as symbolic codes. Children can map finger patterns to symbols above their corresponding cardinality level even in subset-knowers. Finger patterns may play a role in the process by which children learn to map symbols to quantities. Fingers patterns' use in the classroom context may be an adequate instructional and diagnostic tool.
在不同代码之间进行数值信息表示的映射技能，例如数字符号（即口头数字词和书面数字）和非符号数量，在数字概念的发展中非常重要。本研究的目的是通过纳入另一种在发展早期出现的数字代码——手指模式来研究儿童的映射技能。具体来说，研究调查了(i)映射技能的发展顺序以及与幼儿基数理解的关联；以及(ii)手指模式是否与符号代码类似处理，还是作为非符号数量处理。本研究纳入了学前儿童（3 岁组，N=113，M=40.8 个月，SD=3.6 个月；4 岁组，N=103，M=52.9 个月，SD=3.4 个月），包括基数知识者和子集知识者，共 216 名，进行了 12 项任务测试，评估了数字词、阿拉伯数字、手指模式和数量之间的映射关系。结果表明，儿童对符号数字的映射能力先于对这些符号反映数量的理解，并且儿童在基数知识之上识别手指模式，这表明手指模式本质上是符号性的。研究亮点：儿童在手指模式与符号（数字词和阿拉伯数字）之间的映射比在手指模式与数量之间的映射更准确，这表明手指作为整体被视为符号代码。即使在子集知识者中，儿童也可以将手指模式映射到与其基数水平相对应的符号上。手指模式可能在儿童学习将符号映射到数量的过程中发挥作用。手指模式在课堂环境中的使用可能是一种合适的教学和诊断工具。
