A Study Of Piagets Theory Of The Evolution Of The Concept Of Number In Children

First published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Professor Piaget discusses a set of investigations he and a team of co-workers carried out on the genesis of the notion of number in the child's mind. By asking questions freely, they were able to gather valuable statements from children about the actions they were asked to perform with experimental objects. Beginning with the hypothesis that the construction of number goes hand-in-hand with the development of logic, the research team set out to diagnose developing number-relevant capabilities more basic than those involved in counting and routine primary-school number work. The aim was to study the essential properties of the number system and the underlying assumptions which adults make about the behavior of numbers. The first experiments dealt with the child's ability to grasp the ideas of conservation of quantity and conservation of number. These led to investigations on the ability to coordinate corresponding sets and a study of the cardinal and ordinal aspects of numbers and their interrelationships. The final experiments dealt with the child's growing awareness of basic additive and multiplicative properties of numbers. Piaget sees classes, relations, and numbers as cognitive domains which develop in an intertwined, mutually dependent way. From these experiments, he concludes that "number is organized, stage after stage, in close connection with the gradual elaboration of systems of inclusions (hierarchy of logical classes) and systems of asymmetrical relations (qualitative seriations), the sequence of numbers thus resulting from an operational synthesis of classification and seriation."

This book was first published in 1979.

Jean Piaget was one of the most salient and inspirational figures in psychological and educational research of the 20th century. He was also prolific, authoring or editing over 80 books and numerous journals and papers which spawned a continuation of his work over the following decades. His work now compromises a major component of many courses on children's psychological development and in a research tradition which is expanding, scholars may need access to the original texts rather than secondhand accounts. This volume is the third of nine reproducing Piaget's original works - they are also available as a boxed set.

The Development of Children’s Thinking offers undergraduate and graduate students in psychology and other disciplines an introduction to several core areas of developmental psychology. It examines recent empirical research within the context of longstanding theoretical debates. In particular, it shows how a grasp of classic theories within developmental psychology is vital for a grasp of new areas of research such as cognitive neuroscience that have impacted on our understanding of how children develop. The focus of this book will be on infancy and childhood, and it looks at: Theories and context of development How developmental psychology attempts to reconcile influences of nature and nurture Communication in infancy as a precursor to later thinking Language development in primates and young children Cognitive and social development, including the child’s understanding of the mind How studies of moral reasoning reflect upon our understanding of development

This book was first published in 1969.

"This purpose of this book, as envisioned by the author, is to introduce the education or psychology undergraduate student to the basic concepts of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development."-- Page vii.