Learning Math Is a Matter of Intuition

In a new study of the reasons that may ultimately hinder children's abilities to achieve even basic math proficiency, experts have determined that some kids simply lack an intuitive grasp of the whole concept of working with numbers.

When adding this to the fact that mathematics are hard to learn and practice even when the inclination to do so is present, teachers get a recipe for disaster. Those without mathematical inclinations are left behind, unable to achieve the level of performance schools demand of them.

This can in turn lead to learning disabilities, experts write in the latest online issue of the scientific journal Child Development. An inaccurate sense of number is however only one of the things that prevent children from learning math.

Poor spatial reasoning or deficient working memory are also leading reasons why kids cannot learn mathematics as soon and as good as teachers expect of them. Experts behind the new work say that a host of other factors are at work in determining this unability as well.

“Some children have a remarkably imprecise intuitive sense of numbers, and we believe these children have math learning disability, at least in part, due to deficits in this intuitive type of number sense,” explains Michele Mazzocco PhD.

“But other students who underperform in math do so despite having an intact number sense. This demonstrates the complexity of determining precisely what influences or interferes with a child’s mathematical learning,” she adds. quoted by PsychCentral.

The expert, who is based at the Kennedy Krieger Institute (KKI), says that anywhere between 6 and 14 percent of all children who learn math in school have difficulties grasping its basic concepts. The correlation holds even in kids who are perfectly capable of achieving performance in other subjects.

Unfortunately, the inability to learn even basic math has damaging consequences throughout a person's lives. Their ability to succeed at the workplace, or to make financially-sound decisions, may be significantly hampered by the inability to calculate basic equations properly.

“A key message for parents and teachers is that children vary in the precision of their intuitive sense of numbers. We might take for granted that every child perceives numbers with roughly comparable precision, but this assumption would be false,” Mazzocco explains.

“Some students may need more practice, or different kinds of practice, to develop this number sense. At the same time, if a child is struggling with mathematics at school, we should not assume that the child’s difficulty is tied to a poor number sense; this is just one possibility,” she concludes.