Why are some people better than others in math?

It is not a secret, we know that there are human beings who have greater ease for mathematics and even enjoy them, while for others they are a kind of torture and extraterrestrial language almost impossible to understand.These differences in addressing the numbers have been attributed to socioeconomic and environmental differences among children, and to different levels of quality in education systems around the world; and this may partly be true, but not the whole truth, as evidenced by recent research and studies conducted in the United States.

Children who calculated

All human beings are born with an innate ability to calculate and numerical calculations , which allow us to know immediately which tree is most loaded with fruits or estimate at a glance how many birds are in a flock.However, it also seems to be innate the fact that some humans have a greater ability than others to handle numbers.

Universities Americans from Duke and John Hopkins conducted a study with 48 six-month-old children, who were tested on surfaces that had to differentiate surfaces with different points.Later the same children were subjected to simple tests to measure their mathematical ability and the same individuals who excelled in the first tests did it again.

In another test, the results of which were also published in 2013, carried out by Stanford University, 24 children in third grade of primary school participated in a special math teaching program for 8 weeks. The math skills of the participants improved extremely unequally , in a range that was from 8% to 198% even if there were no such notable differences between children, neither in the intelligence, cognitive memory or IQ tests.

Why are some people better than others in math?

Where differences were found in the brain images that were taken from the participating students.who showed greater ability for mathematics had a larger hippocampus -it is the key area for memory-and stronger neuronal connections between this part of the brain and others responsible for long-term memory and Habit formation.

Mathematical skills can be acquired

The same team that worked with children, coordinated by researchers Elizabeth Brannon and Joonkoo Park, conducted another study with 52 adults and I prove that with a basic teaching program and adequate motivation they could substantially improve their ability to solve increasingly complex mathematical problems .

Although these experiments confirm that there are human beings that are born with greater ability than others for numbers and calculation, also point out that the teaching of this discipline to any human being is still possible, and that you just have to refine the pedagogical instruments and understand that not everyone has the same innate disposition for mathematics, but we can learn them.

Have you been interested in the article? Then find out about a new device to think and learn faster.

Images: Gunnar Þor Gunnarsson , Andreas Rodler , Katherine Clark , Canadian Pacific , THEMACGIRL*

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