American scientists at Carnegie Mellon University in Maryland found a measured improvement in the number skills of children aged four and five years old after playing a number game. Over a fortnight, the 124 children in the study played either a number board game or a parallel colour-based game with an experimenter for four 15-minute sessions.
The researchers said their counting and numerical identification skills improved and the effect was still evident nine weeks later.
Dr Geetha Ramani, psychologist and co-author of the report, said, 'Before playing the number game, the children could count to an average of eight. Afterwards the average was counting all the way to ten. We found surprising stability in all numerical tasks when we came back after nine weeks.
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