| The concept of number is an important expression of a child’s cognitive development and one of the most important concepts of Piaget’s Genetic Epistemology. Piaget maintains that children’s understanding of the world, development of logic, and development of cognition and thinking all start with the concept of number. The study has shown that during the development of children’s mathematical ability, the concept of number as one of "’the central concepts’" is directly related to children’s future math study. Besides, children’s concept of number mastered during their preschool period is conducive to their development of thinking ability because their abstract thinking ability develops when they learn and use these concepts of number. The infant’s concept of number cannot begin and develop without the living environment and daily experiences, therefore as children’s micro system of living, the family has the most important influence on children’s growth and cognitive development. Mother, as the first teacher of children, always plays an important role in the children’s growth and cognitive development. The previous research on the development of the concept of number of infants aged 1.5-2.5 mainly focuses on one or some areas of mathematics, instead of the concept of number. The research has shown each subset of the concept of number is inseparable from each other. Although the study on preschool children’s mathematic cognitive development has expanded from the study of the concept of number from toddler period to the study of infancy period, to a large extent, the research on infants aged 1.5-2.5 is still ignored. The study of the mathematics interaction between mothers and children conducted in China is inadequate, especially the research on infants aged 1.5-2.5. And almost no research specialized in the mathematics interaction between mothers and infants has been conducted. Therefore it is necessary to study the mathematics interaction between mothers and infants and the development of number concept for this age group.The research subjects are 100 infants aged 1.5-2.5 and their mothers from 3 early childhood education institutions of 3 districts of Chengdu, namely Jinjiang District, Jinniu District and Wenjiang District. Two research tools were adopted:1. The number sense test tool adapted from Malofeeva was used to test the development level of infants’concept of number, including 5 sections:number visual test, singing the number, counting the number, set comparison and addition and subtraction operation, totaling 10 assignments,40 topics.2. "Questionnaire on the Mathematics Interaction between Mothers and Infants", including 3 sections:basic information, questionnaire on "Family Learning Environment", and the scale of the mathematics interaction between mothers and infants. The questionnaire is designed to find out the mathematics interaction between mothers and infants aged 1.5-2.5 in family setting.The following main research results were achieved on the basis of the statistical analysis of the data:1. Certain development of the concept of number in infants aged 1.5-2.5 was observed, but the overall level was low.2. There exist remarkable age disparities among the development levels of the concept of number of infants aged 1.5-2.5, but no gender differences.3. There exist remarkable disparities among the 5 sections of the concept of number in infants aged 1.5-2.5.4. There exists a positive correlation between the family learning enviroment and the development of the concept of number of infants aged 1.5-2.5.5. Family income has significant influence on the development of the concept of number of infants aged 1.5-2.5.6. There exist marginally remarkable differences in the mathematics interaction between mothers and infants at different developmet levels of the concept of number of infants aged 1.5-2.5.7. There is a positive correlation between developmet levels of the concept of number of infants aged 1.5-2.5 and the mathematics interaction between mothers and infants. |
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