This study investigated domains within the tasks of ordination, cardination and natural number. In addition, it examined the sequencing of the development of established domains between ordination, cardination and natural number. One hundred and forty-eight children were individually given a test designed to ascertain the presence of arithmetic related skills. The task of cardination was designed to detect the ability to associate numbers with sets containing a group of elements ranging from one to five. The task of ordination was designed to detect the ability to associate a number with a relative position within a group of ordered objects. The task of natural number assessed children's ability to add numbers with a sum equal to five or less. Latent structure analysis was used to analyze the results. Four different models were used in order to establish domains within each task. The four models that were used tested independence, equiprobability, ordered relations and asymmetrical equivalence. The results showed two domains for cardination. One item in a set constituted one domain while three and five items in a set constituted a second domain. The domain for ordination included relative positions one, three and five. In regards to natural number, the results showed a permeable domain. There was some indication of ordering but it was not strong enough to yield separate domains. The same models were then used to compare across the different tasks. The results showed that the easiest cardination domain developed before ordination and natural number. The results also showed that the ordination task was equivalent to one of the natural number tasks. All of the other comparisons between cardination, ordination and natural number yielded asymmetrically equivalent relations. That is, there was an ordering but the ordering was not strong enough to establish separate domains.

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationships between performance of first-grade students on Piagetan conservation of number and substance tasks and performance on an arithmetic test of missing place-holders, a reading readiness test, and an intelligence test.