Counting in childhood: Double task or procedure?

It is widely held that the counting is a complex activity requiring the use of at least three skills : to say number-words, to point to each and every object and to coordinate the sequential progress of the two formers activi ties to avoid double countings and omissions. The aim of this article is to determine the cognitive cost of this coordination and examine how the cogn itive cost changes during development. Six-and eight-year-old children and adults performed three tasks :pointing, saying and counting. The results sh ow that both the speed and the accuracy of counting are modified by factors (age, size of collections, and spatial arrangement) having an impact on on e of its components (pointing and enunciation). However, contrary to the hy pothesis of a demanding coordination, counting never takes longer than the slowest of the component activities (when performed separately). As a conse quence, counting constitutes, since the age of six, an integrated skill, a procedure.