Eugene A. Geist Ph.D.

Abstract for presentation at the Conference on Logical-Mathematical thinking in Early Childhood Education

In this presentation, I will offer evidence to support the idea of a mathematics acquisition device.  The Mathematics acquisition device is an innate part of every human mind that assists and makes it possible for humans to learn and understand mathematics. We will discuss how the child's brain and natural development supports the learning of math. For many years mathematics has been thought of as a set of skills and facts to me learned or memorized. The idea of the Mathematics Acquisition Device (MAD) proposes that early mathematics learning is more rooted in developmental processes of the brain and that learning mathematics is not just a collection of facts and skills. Rather, children use natural thinking abilities to order their world using mathematics and logic and that thinking about the world mathematically may be a natural part of our intellectual endowment as humans. Just as it is hard to keep children from learning language, there are basic math concepts that children acquire without direct teaching and which could never be taught through direct teaching.

We will also examine milestones in the development of mathematical thinking in children and what the development of these milestones mean for the learning of mathematics in young children. Evidence shows that many of these milestones are caused by the natural course of development. I will propose parallels between the learning of language and the acquisition of mathematics and how these biological, brain based developmental milestones can be supported by environmental variables and facilitation from the teacher and implications for curriculum development, teaching methods, guidance, and textbooks for children.