Research shows Indigenous children don't need number words to count

Aug 19 2008

According to a new international study, Indigenous Australian children who speak languages that have few number words are still able to count.

The study by researchers from the University of Melbourne and University College London, investigated the number skills of 45 children from two Indigenous communities - a group of Warlpiri speakers in the Tanami Desert, north west of Alice Springs, and Anindilyakawa speakers from Groote Eylandt in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

The children aged between four and seven years were compared with a group of English-speaking Indigenous preschool children from Melbourne.

After completing a number of tasks such as "copying" the number of objects the researchers placed on a mat and matching the right number of counters to the number of times the researcher banged two sticks together, it was found there was no difference in numerical ability between the children who spoke languages without number words and the English-speaking children.

The researchers found that even though the children lived in communities which did not have words or gestures for numbers they were able to demonstrate strong numeracy skills based on quantity and spatial concepts and what is more their skills were equal to the English-speaking indigenous children.

Study co-author Associate Professor Bob Reeve, from the University of Melbourne's School of Behavioural Science, says the study strongly contradicts previous research which claimed people needed a language with "counting words" to develop number skills.

Professor Reeve says the findings have strong implications for the way numeracy is taught, not only to Indigenous children, but to students from all cultures and could provide a key to a better understanding of why some children struggle with basic numeracy skills.

Reeve says the research shows that number abilities are not simply based on culture or language and the findings are consistent with the idea that humans have an innate system for representing quantity ideas and the lack of number words in a language should not prevent them from completing simple number and computation tasks.

Professor Reeve says the study shows Indigenous Australian children have very strong basic quantity skills which can be the basis for building further mathematical skills.

He says ways of adding on to these building blocks to develop ways of teaching numeracy need to be investigated in terms which are relevant to Indigenous cultures.

Professor Reeve also says the way numeracy is redefine across the board needs to be considered, moving away from the view that we need words to describe numbers and basic computations.

Study leader Professor Brian Butterworth, from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, says people are born with the ability to see the world numerically just as they are born to see the world in colour.

The research will be published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.