Study: Some are born with math ability

The below links to the UPI story on this study, and the NYTimes just covered it, too.  The implications for STEM education are pretty interesting.  If you aren’t born with math skills, can they be developed?  Without that developmental effort, how well will the students without good number sense do in STEM fields? What other kinds of skills are critical for STEM learning, how do we identify them, test for them, and create developmental remediation if they are missing?

People can be born with good math skills, just as some are born with a talent for music, art or athletics, a U.S. study suggests.

Research conducted by Johns Hopkins University psychologists indicates math ability in preschool children is strongly linked to their inborn and primitive “number sense,” called an “Approximate Number System” — ANS.

via Study: Some are born with math ability – UPI.com.