Playing the Numbers: Music beats math anxiety, studies find
Friday, April 2, 2010 - 13:49
in Psychology & Sociology
(PhysOrg.com) -- A mother walks her fussy baby around the house, singing and patting his back in time to the lullaby. She might not know it, but her rhythmic patting is her baby's first experience of patterning, a mathematical concept linked to more advanced math such as algebra. Can a child so young really respond to a lesson about math? Yes, say Ohio University professors Gene and Kamile Geist. The two have spent the last few years collaborating on research that shows that music can help children to interact with their world mathematically from a very early age.