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<Bz27>Children have innate maths ability — study

CHICAGO (Reuters) — Children who had never been taught addition or subtraction were able to solve approximate maths problems involving large numbers, researchers said on Wednesday in a finding that reveals a new understanding of children’s innate maths ability.They said children’s early struggles with maths may be linked to the need to produce a precise number. Their finding could lead to better ways to teach math to young children.

Writing in the journal Nature, Camilla Gilmore of the University of Nottingham, Elizabeth Spelke of Harvard University and colleagues conducted a series of experiments with five- and six-year-old children from a wide variety of socio-economic backgrounds.

“I was astonished,” said Spelke, who expected to find just the opposite.

“Clearly, the number words have to be learned and the Arabic notation has to be learned. These things aren’t built into us, but I do think there is a basic nonsymbolic sense of number that is built into us,” she said in a telephone interview.

The authors said their study might be useful for teaching math to young children.