Are number gestures easier than number words for preschoolers

Abstract Some researchers have argued that children's earliest symbols are based on their sensorimotor experience and that arbitrary symbol-referent mapping poses a challenge for them. If so, exposure to iconic symbols (such as one-finger-for-one-object manual gestures) might help children in a difficult domain such as number. We assessed 44 preschoolers’ processing of number gestures and number words on two tasks: give-a-number and how-many. Children were generally more accurate when mapping number words than number gestures onto a number of toys, suggesting that the iconicity of number gestures does not help children map symbols to numbers. We argue that children learn number gestures as arbitrary symbols and do not take advantage of their iconicity.

[1]  E. Spelke,et al.  Infants' Discrimination of Number vs. Continuous Extent , 2002, Cognitive Psychology.

[2]  Padraic Monaghan,et al.  Proceedings of the 23rd annual conference of the cognitive science society , 2001 .

[3]  Elizabeth S Spelke,et al.  Origins of Number Sense , 2003, Psychological science.

[4]  Ellen Bialystok,et al.  Cardinal Limits: Evidence from Language Awareness and Bilingualism for Developing Concepts of Number. , 1997 .

[5]  Kelly S. Mix,et al.  The construction of number concepts , 2002 .

[6]  Rochel Gelman,et al.  Language and Conceptual Development series Number and language : how are they related ? , 2004 .

[7]  H. Wiese.  Iconic and non-iconic stages in number development: the role of language , 2003, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[8]  S E Antell,et al.  Perception of numerical invariance in neonates. , 1983, Child development.

[9]  Kelly S. Mix,et al.  Number Versus Contour Length in Infants' Discrimination of Small Visual Sets , 1999 .

[10]  Paul Bloom,et al.  Enumeration of collective entities by 5-month-old infants , 2002, Cognition.

[11]  Heike Wiese,et al.  The Co-Evolution of Number Concepts and Counting Words , 2007 .

[12]  C. Gallistel,et al.  Preverbal and verbal counting and computation , 1992, Cognition.

[13]  L. Acredolo,et al.  Impact of Symbolic Gesturing on Early Language Development , 2000 .

[14]  Elizabeth Hughes,et al.  Proceedings of the 21th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development , 1997 .

[15]  E. Spelke,et al.  Language and Conceptual Development series Core systems of number , 2004 .

[16]  John A. Sloboda,et al.  The Acquisition of Symbolic Skills , 1983 .

[17]  Marilyn Shatz,et al.  Blackwell handbook of language development , 2006 .

[18]  D. McNeill.  Language and Gesture , 2000 .

[19]  S. Gelman,et al.  Six does not just mean a lot: preschoolers see number words as specific , 2004, Cognition.

[20]  P. Bloom,et al.  Linguistic cues in the acquisition of number words , 1997, Journal of Child Language.

[21]  D. McNeill.  Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal about Thought , 1992 .

[22]  Hiroshi Matsuda,et al.  Neural correlates for numerical processing in the manual mode. , 2005, Journal of deaf studies and deaf education.

[23]  L. Acredolo,et al.  Symbolic gesturing in normal infants. , 1988, Child development.

[24]  S Goldin-Meadow,et al.  Transitions in learning: evidence for simultaneously activated strategies. , 1993, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[25]  S. Goldin-Meadow.  Gesture's Role in the Learning Process , 2004 .

[26]  Erika Hoff,et al.  Input and the Acquisition of Language: Three Questions , 2008 .

[27]  P. Gordon.  Numerical Cognition Without Words: Evidence from Amazonia , 2004, Science.

[28]  Jean Ann.  A linguistic investigation of the relationship between physiology and handshape. , 1993 .

[29]  Susan Duncan,et al.  Growth points in thinking-for-speaking , 1998 .

[30]  S. Engel.  Thought and Language , 1964 .

[31]  Susan M. Wagner,et al.  Probing the Mental Representation of Gesture: Is Handwaving Spatial?. , 2004 .

[32]  J. Deloache,et al.  Manipulatives as symbols: A new perspective on the use of concrete objects to teach mathematics , 1997 .

[33]  Ad W. Smitsman,et al.  Visual perception of numerosity in infancy. , 1990 .

[34]  S. Carey,et al.  Re-visiting the competence/performance debate in the acquisition of the counting principles , 2006, Cognitive Psychology.

[35]  S. Carey,et al.  The Representations Underlying Infants' Choice of More: Object Files Versus Analog Magnitudes , 2002, Psychological science.

[36]  M. Tomasello,et al.  The development of the ability to recognize the meaning of iconic signs. , 2008, Journal of deaf studies and deaf education.

[37]  S. Pika,et al.  How to Order a Beer , 2009 .

[38]  Jean Piaget,et al.  The child's conception of time; , 1969 .

[39]  K. Wynn,et al.  Large-Number Addition and Subtraction by 9-Month-Old Infants , 2004, Psychological science.

[40]  A. Krott,et al.  Large constituent families help children parse compounds , 2005, Journal of Child Language.

[41]  Justin N Wood,et al.  Infants' enumeration of actions: numerical discrimination and its signature limits. , 2005, Developmental science.

[42]  M. Alibali,et al.  Transitions in concept acquisition: using the hand to read the mind. , 1993, Psychological review.

[43]  K. Miller,et al.  Preschool Origins of Cross-National Differences in Mathematical Competence: The Role of Number-Naming Systems , 1995 .

[44]  J. Wertsch.  Vygotsky and the Social Formation of Mind , 1985 .

[45]  M. Posner,et al.  Brain mechanisms of quantity are similar in 5-year-old children and adults. , 1998, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[46]  Fei Xu,et al.  Numerosity discrimination in infants: Evidence for two systems of representations , 2003, Cognition.

[47]  C. Gallistel,et al.  Nonverbal Counting in Humans: The Psychophysics of Number Representation , 1999 .

[48]  A. O'Reilly,et al.  Using representations: comprehension and production of actions with imagined objects. , 1995, Child development.

[49]  Kelly S. Mix,et al.  Preschoolers' recognition of numerical equivalence: sequential sets. , 1999, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[50]  Chris Donlan,et al.  The Development of Mathematical Skills , 2021 .

[51]  Karen Wynn,et al.  Children's understanding of counting , 1990, Cognition.

[52]  Lisa Feigenson,et al.  Tracking individuals via object-files: evidence from infants' manual search , 2003 .

[53]  E. Spelke,et al.  Large number discrimination in 6-month-old infants , 2000, Cognition.

[54]  Heinz Werner,et al.  Symbol formation : an organismic-developmental approach to the psychology of language , 1984 .

[55]  M. Tomasello.  Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition , 2003 .

[56]  Olga Capirci,et al.  From communication to language in two modalities , 1994 .

[57]  C. Gallistel,et al.  The Child's Understanding of Number , 1979 .

[58]  T. Graham,et al.  The role of gesture in children's learning to count. , 1999, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[59]  Elizabeth M Brannon,et al.  The development of ordinal numerical knowledge in infancy , 2002, Cognition.

[60]  J. D. Bonvillian,et al.  The role of inconicity in early sign language acquisition. , 1984, The Journal of speech and hearing disorders.

[61]  H. Sinclair,et al.  Young Children’s Ideas about the Written Number System , 1983 .

[62]  Laura L. Namy,et al.  The Changing Role of Iconicity in Non-Verbal Symbol Learning: A U-Shaped Trajectory in the Acquisition of Arbitrary Gestures , 2004 .

[63]  K. Wynn.  Children's acquisition of the number words and the counting system , 1992, Cognitive Psychology.

[64]  Karen Wynn,et al.  Addition and subtraction by human infants , 1992, Nature.

[65]  Stanislas Dehaene,et al.  Author’s Response: Is Number Sense a Patchwork? , 2001 .

[66]  Did Language Give Us Numbers? Symbolic Thinking and the Emergence of Systematic Numerical Cognition , 2001 .

[67]  Kelly S. Mix,et al.  Similarity and Numerical Equivalence: Appearances Count , 1999 .

[68]  Michael C. Frank,et al.  Number as a cognitive technology: Evidence from Pirahã language and cognition , 2008, Cognition.

[69]  S. Carey,et al.  On the limits of infants' quantification of small object arrays , 2005, Cognition.

[70]  M. Alibali,et al.  The function of gesture in learning to count: more than keeping track * , 1999 .