October 16, 2011

Without Language Numbers Make No Sense

Without Language Numbers Make No Sense link
By Bob Holmes
February 7, 2011

The study studied Nicaragua people who created their own sign language but that had no vocabulary for numbers. These "homesigners" were tested by summarising picture stories in which numbers played an important role. Spanish speaking Nicarguans who weren;'t deaf and deaf people who used American Sign Language performed these tests flawlessly. But homesigners were only accurate at counting numbers up to three or four. For example holding out 9 fingers to represent 10.

They can approximate but have no way of getting to the precise number.

The researchers are still not sure which component of language is crucial to developing an accuarte number sense.

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