O senso numérico da criança: formação e características

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the formation of the concept of number in children. It occurs in two perspectives: the first is the theoretical context that is dedicated to the study of two scientific approaches with different assumptions; the second is empirical in nature and focus the identification of individual differences in numerical abilities in children who start the school stage. In the first part are addressed ideas of Piaget's theory, within the psychology genetics, and ideas of the French neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene, exposed in the piece "La Bosse des Maths." (1997), in which arguments presented show inconsistencies in the methods of Piaget on the formation of the concept of number in children. The theoretical support gives the development of the empirical which is composed of activities inspired by the experiments of Dehaene. The activities are supposed to meet individual differences in several aspects of the numerical sense of the child, in the first years of school life. We stress that in view of Piaget, logic and arithmetic are built in the mind of the infant by observation, the internalization and the abstraction of regularities of the world, denying any numerical ability in children under four years, while for Dehaene, all people have even in its first year of life, a well-developed sense of numbers, because for every thought or that calculations made, triggered activity of specific neural circuits of our cerebral cortex. Empirical activities indicate individual differences of children in most of the proposed activities, revealing different conditions of confrontation to operate their activities. You can also see differences in conceptions about the change in quantity. A study like this back to the understanding of how it is the numerical ability in children and characterizations that they have is important for the Mathematics Education, as the concept of number is fundamental to build up the concepts of mathematics