Published

2025-03-14

Development of Additive Reasoning in Young Children: The Case of Partitioning and the Successor Function

Desarrollo del razonamiento aditivo en niños pequeños: El caso de la partición y la función de sucesión

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15446/rcp.v34n1.105537

Keywords:

preschool children, numerical knowledge, additive reasoning, successor function, partitioning, development, child development (en)
niños preescolares, conocimiento numérico, razonamiento aditivo, función de sucesión, partición, desarrollo (es)

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Authors

  • Hernando Taborda Osorio Pontificia Universidad Javeriana
  • Ana Cristina Santana Espitia Universidad Pedagógica y Tecnológica de Colombia
  • Yenny Otálora Sevilla Universidad del Valle

 Additive reasoning is a fundamental mathematical skill that children learn during elementary school. However, previous studies have suggested that children start their learning process in preschool. The current research aims to examine how two additive reasoning skills, successor function and partitioning, emerge in the preschool years. To this purpose, a group of 56 children of 4 and 5 years of age were tested on three additive tasks, a cardinality task, and a counting task. The results show a similar developmental trajectory for children’s performance on the successor function task and the partitioning tasks, with significantly better performance in 5-year-olds. The results also show that children’s cardinality knowledge and counting skills are good predictors in both additive reasoning tasks. These findings suggest that preschool is a critical period for learning the additive structure of the number system and that knowledge of verbal counting boosts this acquisition.

 El razonamiento aditivo es una habilidad matemática fundamental que los niños aprenden durante la escuela primaria. Sin embargo, estudios anteriores han sugerido que los niños inician su proceso de aprendizaje en preescolar. La presente investigación pretende examinar cómo emergen dos habilidades de razonamiento aditivo, la función de sucesión y la partición, en los años preescolares. Para ello, un grupo de 56 niños de 4 y 5 años fueron evaluados en tres tareas aditivas, una tarea de cardinalidad y una tarea de conteo. Los resultados muestran una trayectoria de desarrollo similar para el rendimiento de los niños en la tarea de función de sucesión y en las tareas de partición, con un rendimiento significativamente mejor en los niños de 5 años. Los resultados también muestran que el conocimiento de cardinalidad y las habilidades de conteo de los niños son buenos predictores en ambas tareas de razonamiento aditivo. Estos resultados sugieren que la etapa preescolar es un periodo crítico para el aprendizaje de la estructura aditiva del sistema numérico y que el conocimiento del conteo verbal potencia esta adquisición.

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How to Cite

APA

Taborda Osorio, H., Santana Espitia, A. C. . and Otálora Sevilla, Y. (2025). Development of Additive Reasoning in Young Children: The Case of Partitioning and the Successor Function. Revista Colombiana de Psicología, 34(1), 93–110. https://doi.org/10.15446/rcp.v34n1.105537

ACM

[1]
Taborda Osorio, H., Santana Espitia, A.C. and Otálora Sevilla, Y. 2025. Development of Additive Reasoning in Young Children: The Case of Partitioning and the Successor Function. Revista Colombiana de Psicología. 34, 1 (Mar. 2025), 93–110. DOI:https://doi.org/10.15446/rcp.v34n1.105537.

ACS

(1)
Taborda Osorio, H.; Santana Espitia, A. C. .; Otálora Sevilla, Y. Development of Additive Reasoning in Young Children: The Case of Partitioning and the Successor Function. Rev. colomb. psicol. 2025, 34, 93-110.

ABNT

TABORDA OSORIO, H.; SANTANA ESPITIA, A. C. .; OTÁLORA SEVILLA, Y. Development of Additive Reasoning in Young Children: The Case of Partitioning and the Successor Function. Revista Colombiana de Psicología, [S. l.], v. 34, n. 1, p. 93–110, 2025. DOI: 10.15446/rcp.v34n1.105537. Disponível em: https://revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/psicologia/article/view/105537. Acesso em: 29 mar. 2025.

Chicago

Taborda Osorio, Hernando, Ana Cristina Santana Espitia, and Yenny Otálora Sevilla. 2025. “Development of Additive Reasoning in Young Children: The Case of Partitioning and the Successor Function”. Revista Colombiana De Psicología 34 (1):93-110. https://doi.org/10.15446/rcp.v34n1.105537.

Harvard

Taborda Osorio, H., Santana Espitia, A. C. . and Otálora Sevilla, Y. (2025) “Development of Additive Reasoning in Young Children: The Case of Partitioning and the Successor Function”, Revista Colombiana de Psicología, 34(1), pp. 93–110. doi: 10.15446/rcp.v34n1.105537.

IEEE

[1]
H. Taborda Osorio, A. C. . Santana Espitia, and Y. Otálora Sevilla, “Development of Additive Reasoning in Young Children: The Case of Partitioning and the Successor Function”, Rev. colomb. psicol., vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 93–110, Mar. 2025.

MLA

Taborda Osorio, H., A. C. . Santana Espitia, and Y. Otálora Sevilla. “Development of Additive Reasoning in Young Children: The Case of Partitioning and the Successor Function”. Revista Colombiana de Psicología, vol. 34, no. 1, Mar. 2025, pp. 93-110, doi:10.15446/rcp.v34n1.105537.

Turabian

Taborda Osorio, Hernando, Ana Cristina Santana Espitia, and Yenny Otálora Sevilla. “Development of Additive Reasoning in Young Children: The Case of Partitioning and the Successor Function”. Revista Colombiana de Psicología 34, no. 1 (March 14, 2025): 93–110. Accessed March 29, 2025. https://revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/psicologia/article/view/105537.

Vancouver

1.
Taborda Osorio H, Santana Espitia AC, Otálora Sevilla Y. Development of Additive Reasoning in Young Children: The Case of Partitioning and the Successor Function. Rev. colomb. psicol. [Internet]. 2025 Mar. 14 [cited 2025 Mar. 29];34(1):93-110. Available from: https://revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/psicologia/article/view/105537

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