What comes next?
Completes the pattern and orders by size — the first mathematics a child does, drawn with no reading.
What it measures
A pattern is the first mathematics a human being does: seeing that something repeats, and so expecting what follows. Counting, adding and reading a table all start there. The instrument describes which patterns the child saw today: simple repetition, then longer ones, then ordering by size.
How to read the result
The items run from easiest to hardest on purpose, so where they stop is the information — not the total. A four-year-old sees "red blue red blue", a five-year-old sees "red red blue", a six-year-old sees three elements. So a child who stops at the first at four is exactly on time.
Before administering
Run your finger along the row from beginning to end, naming what is in it aloud: "red… blue… red… blue… and next?". That naming aloud is half the game at this age. Then let them press. Do not correct and do not point at the answer.
Its limits
⚠️ This is not an intelligence test and is not read as one — and it will not be. What it describes is whether they saw the repetition today. It is not standardised and has no norms, and four items in a dimension are enough for a description and not for a decision. The gap between a four-year-old and a five-and-a-half-year-old is vast in this skill in particular: read the result together with the child's age in months, or the younger one will look "weak" when they are exactly on time.
Its dimensions
- Sees simple repetitionWhen high: Sees the “A B A B” pattern and knows what comes after it.
- Sees the longer patternWhen high: Finishes patterns of three elements or of a double repetition.
- Orders by sizeWhen high: Puts things in order from smallest to biggest and reverses it when asked.