This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The concept of counting a small number of objects is so simple, so fundamental, that we often take for granted what one, two and three really mean when applied to the world. Not just reading the words, or recognizing the numeric characters—1, 2 and 3—but understanding how those numbers apply to sets of things around us.
How they answer the question, "How many?" Understanding that the final number word said when counting a group of objects represents the total quantity of items in that set is a mathematical concept known as the cardinal principle, and it's something that typically developing children usually grasp between the ages of 3½ and 5½. "Kids learn to count, then they start understanding what the words mean, and then they understand this cardinal principle—that the last number word that you say, if you've followed all of the counting principles, is a property of the set," says Marie Coppola, a professor of psychological sciences and linguistics in UConn's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences who studies language acquisition and language creation as well as the relationship between language and cognition. "It's not like there's something special about that last one that makes it seven," Coppola says.
"No, it's the whole set that's seven. It's an abstraction, and it marks a real milestone in children's number development." Achieving that milestone is a critical component in later mathematics proficiency. But what if a child doesn't know the word "one" to begin with, or doesn't understand what "two" means when applied to a set?
That can be the case for children who are deaf and hard of hearing, whose language acquisition, which otherwise would begin in infancy, often doesn't begin until later in development. Fewer than 10% of deaf and hard-of-hearing children are born in the United States to deaf parents who use American Sign Language, or ASL, meaning that very few acquire language at home starting at birth like most hearing children do. Many parents are instead encouraged to pursue spoken language, assistive technologies and speech therapies for their children, and Coppola notes that while some deaf children do acquire those spoken-language skills, a large number do not.
"Even though we know ASL is a natural language, there is this very, very strong idea—it's millennia old—that speech is associated with intelligence and ability to learn," says Coppola. "And that really persists even in the face of so much counterevidence." Researchers have reported that significant gaps exist between hearing and deaf and hard-of-hearing children in language development in early childhood. Even in high-income nations with strong infrastructure in special education, deaf and hard-of-hearing children lag about one year behind their hearing peers in mathematics.
The impact cascades through later educational experiences as well. Deaf and hard-of-hearing students score lower on standardized mathematics assessments conducted between ages 8 and 16, researchers have found. In 2017, 15.2% fewer deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals earned bachelor's degrees compared with hearing individuals.
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