Children learning to count at earlier age

Children learning to count at earlier age. Researchers at the University of Sheffield have shown that children begin to learn to count at an earlier age than previously thought. Professor Michael Siegal, from the University´s Department of Psychology, worked with colleagues at the University of Queensland and Kyoto University to study how young children responded to videos of counting. The researchers found that by the age of 18 months, toddlers could recognise basic arithmetic. Children were shown two videos, each of six fish, with a hand pointing to each fish alongside a verbal commentary counting up to six in the first video. However in the second video, the hand moved between only two of the fish, but was accompanied by the same commentary. The study showed that those aged 15 months showed interest in both the correct and incorrect counting sequences, however once they reached 18 months, the infants showed a much greater level of interest in the correct sequence.