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Abstract
The ability to understand and use symbolic number is fundamental to mathematical and cognitive development. Prior research has focused extensively on the developmental trajectory of children’s number word learning, but less is known about how children learn and integrate other number representations, including number gestures, into their emerging understanding of number. Number gestures share properties of both nonsymbolic and symbolic representations, making them a potentially valuable bridge between nonsymbolic quantities and symbolic numbers. Despite this, we know little about their role in number acquisition. Across three studies, I examine children’s number gesture knowledge, its relationship to number word learning, and the underlying mechanisms that support children’s early understanding of these representations. In Study 1, I examine whether subset-knowers more accurately map number gestures to both nonsymbolic quantities and number words than number words to quantities. Results indicate that children possess an understanding of how cardinal number gestures relate to quantities and number words that could allow these representations to serve as an intermediary between quantities and number words. In Study 2, I test whether prompting children to produce a number gesture prior to labeling the set size with a number word improves their number word accuracy. Findings show that gesturing supports verbal number learning, particularly for numbers beyond children’s knower-levels, providing some of the first causal evidence for the role of gestures in numerical development. Finally, in Study 3, I explore why number gestures may be easier to learn than number words, assessing whether their item-based structure accounts for their advantage. Results show that children are better at matching number gestures to sets than sets to other sets, suggesting that they do not rely exclusively on the item-based nature of number gestures, and further supporting the hypothesis that the affordances of number gestures contribute to children’s early understanding of these representations. The results of these three studies, combined with prior research, suggest that number gestures are not just an alternative means for expressing number, but can also support the development of young children’s symbolic number knowledge. By revealing potential mechanisms through which gestures support number learning, this work contributes to a broader understanding of symbolic number acquisition. In addition, these findings have educational implications, highlighting the potential for number gestures to serve as an intuitive and widely available tool for early numerical instruction and learning.