Do young children acquire number words through subitizing or counting?

Two alternative hypotheses can be used to explain how young children acquire the cardinal meaning of small-number words. The first stresses the role of counting and predicts better performance when the items are presented in succession. The second considers the role of subitizing and predicts better performance when the items are presented simultaneously. In this experiment, collections of red dots (from 1 to 6 dots) were presented to three groups of young children (ages 3-5 years) under strictly controlled conditions: simultaneous short presentations versus consecutive short presentations (one dot at a time), and familiar versus unfamiliar configurations. The children had to indicate how many dots they had seen. The results showed that, for small numbers, the children were better at giving the right number-word in the simultaneous task. Performance generally improved when familiar configurations were used, except for small numbers in simultaneous presentation. As a whole, subitizing appears to be the developmental pathway for acquiring the meaning of the first few number words, since it allows the child to grasp the whole and the elements at the same time. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.