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Related Experiment Videos

Development of calculation abilities in young children.

S C Levine1, N C Jordan, J Huttenlocher

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, IL 60637.

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
|February 1, 1992
PubMed
Summary

Children aged 4-6 years demonstrate early calculation skills through nonverbal problem-solving involving object sets. This foundational ability in addition and subtraction precedes their success with verbal and number-fact math problems.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Development
  • Child Psychology
  • Mathematics Education

Background:

  • Early childhood calculation skills are crucial for mathematical development.
  • Understanding the progression from concrete to abstract mathematical concepts is key.
  • Previous research suggests varying developmental trajectories for different problem types.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the development of calculation skills in 4- to 6-year-old children.
  • To compare performance on nonverbal, story, and number-fact addition and subtraction problems.
  • To determine the foundational basis of early arithmetic abilities.

Main Methods:

  • Children aged 4-6 years were presented with identical addition and subtraction problems in three formats: nonverbal (set transformation), story problems (oral), and number-fact problems (oral).

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  • Nonverbal problems involved manipulating physical referents, requiring children to construct the final set.
  • Story and number-fact problems were administered orally without visual aids.

    • Main Results:

    • Four-year-olds showed initial success with nonverbal problems, indicating an ability to transform sets.
    • Comparable success on story and number-fact problems was not achieved until ages 5 1/2 to 6 1/2.
    • Children consistently performed better on nonverbal problems across all tested ages.

    Conclusions:

    • Early addition and subtraction abilities in children stem from concrete experiences with combining and separating sets of objects.
    • This concrete, set-based understanding of calculation precedes the development of abstract, verbal mathematical methods.
    • Nonverbal problem-solving provides an essential foundation for later mathematical learning.