ABSTRACT
This paper explores how a young child (56 m) builds an understanding of the cardinality principle through communicative, touchscreen-based activities involving talk, gesture and body engagement working via multimodal, touchscreen interface using contemporary mobile technology. Drawing upon Nemirovsky's perceptuomotor integration theoretical lens and other foundational aspects of Husserlian phenomenology, we present an in-depth case study of a preschool child developing mathematical expertise and tool fluency using an iPad application called TouchCounts to operate with cardinal numbers. Overall, this study demonstrates that the one-on-one multimodal touch, sight and auditory feedback via a touchscreen device can serve to assist in a child's development of cardinality.
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank the principal investigator of the project, Dr. Nathalie Sinclair, and the participating daycare, teachers, parents, and children for making this work possible.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.