Don't throw the baby out with the math water: Why discounting the developmental foundations of early numeracy is premature and unnecessary

We see no grounds for insisting that, because the concept natural number is abstract, its foundations must be innate. It is possible to specify domain general learning processes that feed into more abstract concepts of numerical infinity. By neglecting the messiness of children's slow acquisition of arithmetical concepts, Rips et al. present an idealized, unnecessarily insular, view of number development. © 2008 Cambridge University Press.