Cardinal limits: Evidence from language awareness and bilingualism for developing concepts of number

The study presented here investigated children's acquisition of cardinality in terms of a framework that isolates two cognitive processing components previously shown to be involved in children's metalinguistic development. These components are called analysis of knowledge and control of processing. In Study 1, children from 3 to 5 years of age were asked to solve three problems that required an understanding of cardinality. The problems were designed to place different demands on these processing components and examine their involvement in specific problems. In Study 2, bilingual children were given two of the problems to compare their performance to a new group of monolinguals. The results from both studies contribute to our knowledge of the development of cardinality by assessing children's ability across several tasks, by classifying those tasks in terms of their reliance on distinct processing components, and by providing a means for relating children's development of number concepts to their development of language. The results also contribute to our knowledge of the cognitive abilities of bilingual children. The implications of these results are that aspects of symbolic development may be a broadly based process that extends beyond domain-specific boundaries.