Math ability is inborn: Study

Results of a study by a team of Johns Hopkins University psychologists have revealed that some people are born with better math skills than others.

The study led by Melissa Libertus, a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, indicates that math ability in preschool children is strongly linked to their inborn and primitive “number sense,” called an “Approximate Number System” or ANS.

The research also reveals that “number sense” is basic to all animals, not just human beings.

Though the link between ANS and formal mathematics ability already has been established in adolescents, Libertus says her team’s is the first study to examine the role of “number sense” in children too young to already have had substantial formal mathematics instruction.

“The relationship between ‘number sense’ and math ability is important and intriguing because we believe that ‘number sense’ is universal, whereas math ability has been thought to be highly dependent on culture and language and takes many years to learn,” she stated.

“Thus, a link between the two is surprising and raises many important questions and issues, including one of the most important ones, which is whether we can train a child’s number sense with an eye to improving his future math ability,” she added.

According to the researchers, inborn numerical estimation abilities are linked to achievement (or lack thereof) in school mathematics.

The study was published online in a recent issue of Developmental Science.