Establishing the reliability of numerical tasks in young children: a test-retest study

Research has highlighted the importance of early numeracy for later academic achievement. Understanding the role of early numeracy requires reliable measures that are appropriate for the age group. However, there is inconsistency in assessing early numerical skills, and many studies fail to report measurement reliability. In the current study, we designed a battery of measures to assess multiple numerical skills and tested 84 children aged 3 to 4 years twice, to establish test-retest reliability. Overall, we found these tasks were quick to administer and highly reliable, except for the non-symbolic comparison task, suggesting that they could be used to reliably assess children’s early numerical skills.