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Article: Asian languages aid mathematical skills.
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- September 19, 1987
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1987 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Asian languages aid mathematics skills
U.S. schoolchildren compare dismally to their counterparts in Japan, China and other Asian countries on tests of mathematics achievement. Researchers attempting to explain this difference are, for the most part, focusing on home and school experiences (SN: 1/31/87, p.72).
But, according to a study presented at the recent annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in New York City, the advantage in understanding and manipulating numbers may be traced to Asian languages with roots in ancient Chinese, including Chinese, Korean and Japanese.
"In Asian languages, number names follow a base-10 ...