We all know the importance of math, but did you know the math skills that you learn early on in life directly go hand in hand with your brain development well into adulthood? Math skills learned at a young age are the basic foundations for what you learn for the rest of your life.
An article by Medical Daily finds that, “According to a recent study, it’s more of a reflection of your childhood memory skills than of your overall intelligence. Researchers looked at the brains of children as they completed math equations and saw the memory section is increasingly used more than counting sections as a child ages. Unfortunately, failure to memorize math when young could affect your brain’s development and leave you forever
counting your fingers and toes”
Stanford University conducted a test amongst young children and adults. In their study they gave children aged 7-9 years old some math problems and observed to see how they would go about answering the problems (whether they relied on counting and etc.) all while they were hooked up to a MRI machine that kept track of brain processes. A year later the group was tested again to see if there were any changes and they say that children were more likely to use the fact retrieval part of their brain rather than counting. They noticed that as the children grew and in the adults the more they seemed to rely on fact retrieval rather than counting numbers. The MRI scans showed that there were physical changes as well. “With age neural connection in the
hippocampus, the region of the brain commonly associated with memory were formed to make the fact retrieval easier. The stronger the connections, the greater each individual's ability to retrieve facts from memory” said Dr. Vinod Menon. Adult’s brains were more centered around fact retrieval and memory rather than on counting.
“In most adults the retrieval of simple math answers came automatically without any use of the counting region of the brain. It seemed that the years of math practice resulted in a permanent physical change in the brain’s patterns and connections” Link
For a complete over view of the study click here.
Now keeping that in minds, do you understand how important it is to ensure that your child develops these key sets of math skills from a young age? Enrolling your child in a program such as Genie Academy ensures that the ever so important basic foundation layer is created and strengthened as a child grows. It is evident that without these basic math skill sets, one is left affected and at a disadvantage for the rest of their lives. Don’t let that be your child. The damage that will be done will be irreversible. With the proper skill set, your child will be ready to take on the world and face all the challenges that they might face. Contact us today at Genie Academy, a program that is dedicated to strengthening your child’s math skills at the most essential part of their lives.
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