Aboriginal children can count without numbers

According to the new Aboriginal children's study of UCL (University of London) and the University of Melbourne, it is not necessary to know the numbers of new numbers can be counted. The study of Aboriginal children - belonging to two communities without words or gestures to indicate numbers - has found that they can imitate and perform number-related tasks.

This finding, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that we possess innate computational capabilities, developing in a diverse way in children who have difficulties in computing.

Professor Brian Butterworth, lead author from UCL's Institute of Perception of Neuroscience, said: 'Recently, an extreme form of linguistic theory has been restored, suggesting that the word used to count plays an essential role in forming the concept of numbers greater than 3 in children. This means that to capture the concept of 'number 5', you need a corresponding vocabulary. Evidence from children in some math-good communities as well as the Amazon adult community, their language does not have words to count, has been used to support this view. '

'However, our study of Aboriginal children shows that we have an innate system to recognize and represent the number of objects in a group, a father. The absence of a number-only vocabulary does not prevent us from doing numbers-related tasks that do not require quantity words.

The study of Aboriginal children - of two communities without words or gestures to indicate numbers - has found that they can imitate and perform number-related tasks.( Photo: iStockphoto / Dan Talson)

The study examines indigenous communities in Australia, who have a very limited number of vocabularies. Although gestures and gestures are used to communicate in some communities, there is no such gesture used for indicators. The study was conducted for children aged 4 to 7 years from two indigenous communities: one located at the edge of the tanami desert about 400km from Alice Springs to the northwest, where the Warlpiri language was used; one located at Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentarria, where the local language is Anindilyakwa. Both communities have words of only 1, 2, a few, and many, although in Anindilyakwa language, there are words corresponding to the number 20, however children do not know these words. The team also works with native English speakers in Melbourne.

Professor Brian Butterworth continued: 'In our research work, we cannot ask questions like:' How much? ' or 'Are these two sets equal in number?'. So we have to implement special methods. For example, children are asked to hold the number of cards corresponding to the number of noises struck by two sticks. Therefore, they must connect the numbers in two quite different forms, noise and action, which means that they cannot rely solely on sight or hearing. They must be abstractly visualized, for example, 5 times the sound emitted and 5 bodies. We found that children Warlpiri and Anindilyakwa performed exercises with a salary of up to 9 not inferior, or even better, children who spoke English, although they lacked vocabulary only numbers'.

'So the basic number concept certainly depends on an innate mechanism. This helps explain why children in an environment with good math skills may have difficulty in arithmetic. Although they have many opportunities both directly and indirectly to learn to count and do arithmetic exercises, but the innate mechanism, the basis for arithmetic ability, can develop misleading '.

Refer:

B. Butterworth, R. Reeve, F. Reynolds and D. Lloyd.Numerical thought with and without words: Evidence from indigenous Australian children.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Published online Aug.18, 2008