Correspondence Errors in Children’s Counting: A Summary

Abstract

The results of chapters 3, 4, and 5 with respect to the nature of the correspondence errors children make in counting are briefly summarized in this chapter. These studies are obviously only a first step toward understanding the complexities of young children’s counting. However, they do contribute a definition of counting that yields a comprehensive category system of correspondence errors. They provide an initial descriptive mapping of the kinds of correspondence errors children make most frequently and of variables that affect these errors. They suggest how frequently young children of different ages make different kinds of errors, although of course the figures reported are subject to the effects of the variables in the particular studies. For example these results make it clear that someone wanting to see many correspondence errors in counting must study 3-year-olds rather than 4-year-olds and that the number of objects in an array must be controlled because this variable affects different kinds of errors in different ways. The hope is that these results will provide a basis for future research that will be able to be related easily because all studies are using the same error categories and reporting the same measures.KeywordsHigh Error RateVerbal LabelNumber WordSmall ArrayCircular LoopThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.