Effects of language characteristics on children's cognitive representation of number: cross-national comparisons

MIURA, IRENE T.; KIM, CHUNCsOON, C.; CHANG, CHIH-MEI; and OKAMOTO, YUKARI. Effects of Language Characteristics on Children's Cognitive Representation of Number: Cross-National Comparisons. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1988, 59, 1445-1450. We compared the cognitive representation of number of American, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean first graders, and Korean kindergartners, to determine if there might be variations in those representations resulting from numerical language characteristics that differentiate Asian and non-Asian language groups. Children were asked to construct various numbers using base 10 blocks. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean children preferred to use a construction of tens and ones to show numbers; place value appeared to be an integral component of their representations. In contrast, English-speaking children preferred to use a collection of units, suggesting that they represent number as a grouping of counted objects. More Asian children than American children were able to construct each number in 2 ways, which suggests greater flexibility of mental number manipulation.