A recent study sheds light on possible ways to improve
children’s mathematical abilities based on babies’ instinctive
sense of number.  According to the new research from the Duke
Institute for Brain Sciences, babies who are better at telling
the difference between large and small groups of items are more
likely to demonstrate a better understanding of math in the
future. The paper, published in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences last Monday, suggested that infants’ innate
number sense is predicative of their later math achievements. If
educators can develop ways to improve number sense at this age,
it might improve their future math skills.  “We wanted to
understand where mathematical cognition comes from,” said
Elizabeth Brannon, a psychology and neuroscience professor and
an author on the study. “One of the unique aspects of humanity
is the ability for mathematics. We don’t see monkeys and trees
do calculus.”  Previous studies suggested that general sense of
quantity correlates with standa