Promoting the development of the cardinality principle: examining the role of subitizing

The basis for meaningful one-to-one counting is the cardinality principle (CP): The last number word used in counting a collection indicates its total. A popular view is that CP development builds on subitizing: the immediate association and labeling of a small collection with a number word. Simon etal. (2021) challenged the theoretical rationale and supporting evidence of this view, arguing in part that subitizing does not provide an adequate conceptual basis for constructing CP knowledge. The present review entails an examination of the theoretical role of subitizing in the construction of the CP and an evaluation of the evidence supporting it.