My Little Infant Scientist

All of the girls were born at a teaching hospital, so as a result of that, we've been involved in more than our fair of research studies... both during pregnancy and infancy. Yesterday, I took Addie to a study that was researching how well babies understand numbers. She sat in front of two TV screens that flashed dots of various sizes, shapes, and configurations. As I learned after it was over, one of the screens always showed 10 dots. One of them alternated between 10 and 20. The theory is that if babies can differentiate between numbers then they would be more interested in the screen that was changing than in the screen that stayed consistent with 10 dots. The researcher said they had found that to be true - that babies can very easily distinguish numbers where one is at least double the other, i.e. 8 vs. 16 or 10 vs. 20. They do spend more time looking at the screen with the changing number of dots. While that's all well and good, I have to wonder what one does with this information. Do I run out and start teaching my six month old math using flash cards with dots? I suppose it is an interesting bit of trivia that babies have a sense of numbers. I just don't know what that buys you on the practical side. Anyway, that was how we spent our morning, and you can see her sporting her new, "I'm An Infant Scientist" bib in the picture.... looking like the little mathematical genius that she is! 

Comments

[Carey]

Whitney did this one too, when she was little. :-)