What if a child is having trouble with numbers in the early years of school?  

Daniel Ansari believes that waiting for the child to eventually “come around” to an ease with numbers on their own isn’t helpful. Rather, he emphasizes two points – early intervention is essential and helping a child develop numeracy skills builds a foundation they can use throughout their lives.

“In Canada, we are a highly literate society,” says Daniel, a Western University professor of education and psychology and Canada Research Chair in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning. “And in order to participate in this society, you need to learn to read and write. But you also need to learn how to deal with numbers, so you can participate in the economy and you can be a critical consumer of information.”

He says children who are uncomfortable with numeracy-based subjects, like math, are also at risk of feeling inferior to their peers and can actually develop anxiety about math. “That’s why it’s important to learn early on where a child might be at risk of developing a mathematical learning difficulty.”

Just why some people are naturally good at numbers and others aren’t is complex. The more important factor is recognizing a child is having a challenge.  

“Then we can think about what the right teaching approaches are to help children understand numerical symbols or make connections between quantities. All children can learn fundamental numerical concepts and skills, and teachers can support this through evidence-based instructional methods.”

To help this process along, Daniel has led the development of the Numeracy Screener, a test of children’s ability to judge which of two numbers is larger.

“The point of screening is not to identify kids who have a learning difficulty, but kids who just don’t have certain pieces of knowledge in place. And if we put them in place, kids can thrive with numbers.”

Originally a printed tool, the Numeracy Screener is now available online for free in five languages, thanks to the support of a group of undergraduate students at Western.  

Daniel says the tool has three benefits. For one, teachers can use it to identify numerical competencies and design specialized learning programs for students at risk of falling behind. For another, the Numeracy Screener can be of use to researchers who study children’s cognitive development.

And the third benefit is, of course, to students. “The ultimate goal is to find ways to use research to enable more kids to become fluent when it comes to numeracy and early math, so they can be set on the right foundations and have a choice of careers and life paths because they have solid numerical skills.”

Daniel’s goal now is to engage educational leaders across Canada to encourage the formal adoption of early numeracy screening. To that end, he recently spoke at a conference of Atlantic Canada’s ministers of education.  

“I think our timing on this is pretty good. I expect there will be provinces that will start to pilot universal early numeracy screening soon because many provinces already do that with literacy.”

Daniel says making an impact is at the core of his professional motivation, from designing tools like the Numeracy Screener to support kids’ futures to mentoring the next generation of scientists in the cognitive development field.  

And he feels collaboration is the energy source needed to really make a difference.

“In the development of the screener, I’ve asked many teachers to review it and give me feedback. That has immediately changed how we’ve designed the tool. It’s important to recognize where your skills end and where other people’s competencies begin and supplement what you know with what they know.”