AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF PIAGET'S THEORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF NUMBER IN CHILDREN*

Abstract

In spite of the great weight of theory and speculation they contain, Piaget's books are all founded essentially on experimental work with children, and the purpose of this study was to repeat some of the experiments which Piaget has outlined in the book on number. Piaget has been criticized for not stating the number of subjects who took part in a given experiment from which he has drawn a specific conclusion: for not giving precisely the age range of the subjects, and for not relating their performance to mental age as well as to the chronological age. The aim of this study therefore was to determine whether ( a ) a group of normal English speaking children, and ( b ) a sample of mentally retarded children and adults, would show the same general trends in development of pre‐number concepts as Piaget's subjects. The factors of mental and chronological age were also considered, as well as the relation of stage of development to ability in arithmetic.