The Effect of Language on Chinese and American 2- and 3-Year Olds’ Recognition of Small Numbers

• In Event: Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: Student Cognition, Attitudes, and Learning in Math

Abstract

Recent research has found that grammar and linguistic cues may affect children’s number word acquisition. The present study was undertaken to investigate the specific differences between Chinese and English use of the small number words and singular/plural markings and whether such differences affect children’s acquisition of those number words. The first study involved searching the CHILDES data; the second study entailed testing twelve 2.4-3.3 years old Chinese and American preschoolers on number recognition and labeling tasks. Results show that singular/plural markings are very rare in Chinese and different terms are used for “two” in counting and labeling. Results also show that American participants performed significantly better than Chinese participants in labeling of “2” and in differentiating singular from plural quantities.

Authors

• Xia Li, Brooklyn College - CUNY

• Ye Sun, West Virginia University

• Arthur J. Baroody, University of Illinois

• David Purpura