Child Psychol. Effect of mental abacus training on working memory for children.
Do the benefits of chess instruction transfer to academic and cognitive skills?
In July 2009, the participant suffered from a right hemispheric infarct in the anterior and middle cerebral arteries. (2017) examined effects of AMC training on resting-state network properties across the whole brain, and found that children with 1 year AMC training showed higher local efficiency or nodal degree in the right fusiform gyrus and bilateral superior occipital gyrus that are thought to be the primary neural substrates of visual processing. Hence, the authors interpreted that AMC training gains in mathematical ability might indirectly improve performance on the Progressive Matrices test. Abacus training affects math and task switching abilities and modulates their relationships in Chinese children.
Neurobiology of intelligence: science and ethics. Subsequently, Hu et al. 18, 614621. Neuroimage 206:116334. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116334, Wang, C., Weng, J., Yao, Y., Dong, S., Liu, Y., and Chen, F. (2017). The authors speculated that intensive training on manipulating an imaginary abacus might promote the construction and formation of visuospatial mental images, through which the training might generate a transfer effect to visuospatial mathematical problems solving. Educ. Adaptive training leads to sustained enhancement of poor working memory in children. (2013) found that children with 3 years AMC training exhibited significantly smaller gray matter volume in the fusiform gyrus than the control children. (A) A physical abacus that has not been operated. La maestra es bilinge con un gran caracter muy dulce y comunicativa tanto con los nios como con los padres. Given that prior research has consistently reported that AMC training induces activation changes in the frontal-parietal regions, Zhou et al. J. Neurosci. Impair.
Kids love Abacus Mental Math! Learn. 
8:551. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00551, Rousselle, L., and Nol, M. P. (2007). Interestingly, we have noticed that AMC relies on the bilateral frontalparietal regions that serves as the core substrate of visuospatial working memory (Hanakawa et al., 2003), while music recruits many brain regions related to phonological working memory and language processing (Koelsch et al., 2002). Empower your child with Abacus Mental Math!
Ne dicunt sententiae nec. (2008) conducted an AMC training program in a large sample of 3185 children between 7 and 11 years. However, if one wishes to demonstrate the effectiveness of cognitive training on a cognitive ability, it is not enough to show enhancements on a single task measure. Many researchers in Asia have claimed and proven that abacus stimulates whole-brain development. (2015), 70 primary school students were divided into two groups who had received either 3 years AMC training or similar amounts of additional standard math curriculum. Given the above positive findings of AMC on mathematics and working memory, and the fact that these two cognitive abilities are closely related to fluid intelligence (Unsworth and Engle, 2005; Primi et al., 2010), an intriguing question worth exploring is whether AMC training has the potential to improve fluid intelligence.
Additionally, individual differences in the white matter tracts were found positively correlated with childrens forward digit spans. According to Baddeleys theory, working memory includes three key components, namely visuospatial sketch, phonological loop, and central executive (Baddeley, 2012). doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2011.07.006, Shapka, J. D., Domene, J. F., and Keating, D. P. (2006). Graeci dissentias sadipscing quo an. Effects of skill training on working memory capacity. Pharmacol. Learn. Dux, P. E., Tombu, M. N., Harrison, S., Rogers, B. P., Tong, F., and Marois, R. (2009). is then amplified by using multiple pathways such as spoken numbers and flash anzan. Neuroimage 22, 8394. Moreover, consistent with the hypothesis that AMC might be more beneficial to children with relatively high visuospatial skills, the study found that the effects of AMC training on arithmetic performance were significantly mediated by individual differences in visuospatial working memory at the beginning of AMC training. Structural magnetic resonance imaging of the adolescent brain. 1021, 7785. J. Exp. However, given that only a Raven test was utilized in prior AMC research to address potential far transfer (Irwing et al., 2008; Wang et al., 2019), further study is warranted. Neuroscience 432, 115125. Neuropsychologia 49, 19381942. Importantly, skilled abacus players can perform fast and accurate arithmetic operations not only with the use of a physical abacus but also by the manipulation of an imaginary abacus in the mind (Frank and Barner, 2012). When we enter a room, we instantly take in information from our surroundings. Psychol. Several studies confirmed this hypothesis. Amplifying the auditory pathway for numbers develops brainpower and skills that take students to the next level. (2012). To date, although many studies have shown that cognitive training can improve performance in a variety of cognitive tasks (Diamond and Lee, 2011; Au et al., 2015; Benz et al., 2016), many other fail to replicate these positive effects, especially when it comes to improving domain-general cognitive abilities (far transfer) (Redick et al., 2013; Melby-Lervg et al., 2016; Sala and Gobet, 2019). 2020QDL006) to CW. doi: 10.1177/001440296403100103, Primi, R., Ferro, M. E., and Almeida, L. S. (2010). Cognitive training does not enhance general cognition. Moreover, activity of the fusiform gyrus was significantly correlated with the size of numerals involved in AMC operations. (2012). 117, 1228.
Further study is warranted to verify this speculation. PLoS One 10:e0139930. For instance, working memory training has been suggested to improve performance in untrained working memory (Holmes et al., 2009); video-game training has been reported to improve performance in visual attention and executive control (Strobach et al., 2012; Belchior et al., 2013); musical training and chess or go games playing that require a broad range of cognitive skills, have been found associated with superior performance in multiple cognitive tasks including working memory, executive control and reasoning (Kim et al., 2014; Benz et al., 2016; Burgoyne et al., 2016; Sala et al., 2017). 
The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Hafer, G. H., College-meramec, S. L. C., Hafer, R. W., and Illinois, S. (2002). Furthermore, there is another study reporting better response inhibition performance in AMC-trained children than their peers (Na et al., 2015). Child Psychol. 
Several recent fMRI studies have reported that the activation patterns in the occipital-temporal regions during untrained visuospatial working memory tasks were changed after AMC training (Dong et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2019; Zhou et al., 2019). 12, 347358.
doi: 10.1007/s00259-008-0949-0, Yao, Y., Du, F., Wang, C., Liu, Y., Weng, J., and Chen, F. (2015). Differ. Bhaskaran, M., Sengottaiyan, A., Madhu, S., and Ranganathan, V. (2006). These cognitive processes may gradually exert a transfer effect to the phonological loop. Inst.
(2013). 50, 225233. Further analysis showed that the increased functional connectivity in the AMC group was primarily driven by increased functional connectivity between the bilateral superior parietal lobules. This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province BK20190937, Natural Science Foundation for Universities of Jiangsu Province 19KJB19005, China Postdoctoral Science Foundation 2018M630655, and the Starting Research Fund from Hangzhou Normal University (No. The authors concluded that the arithmetic advantages of AMC users were likely attributed to the implementation of a visuospatial imaginary strategy. The brain is not a static structure. Develops left and right hemispheres. Checking the Academic Selection argument. (2012). B., and Kwon, J. S. (2017). Considering that the AMC training can be easily applied in school setting and daily life, it may show more advantages in promotion and application than many cognitive training programs constrained by a laboratory setting. Reading: When doing equations, children read the beads on the abacus. 44, 171198. After the eyes have been exposed long enough to seeing the abacus, and fingers have sufficient practice at moving the beads, the abacus can then be removed, and a mental picture replaces the physical abacus. Interventions shown to aid executive function development in children 4 to 12 years old. Lett. Here, we focus on abacus-based mental calculation (AMC), a specific skill utilized for mental calculations. Neurosci. The participant had received 3 years of AMC training at an abacus school. An addition example (256371 + 522613 = 778984) on the physical abacus. Proc. Neuroimage 24, 3439. Mental abacus: the effect of abacus training on Chinese childrens mental calculation. The phonological loop refers to temporary storage of phonological and auditory information. Working memory training does not improve performance on measures of intelligence or other measures of far transfer evidence from a meta-analytic review. To address this issue, Barner et al. Kamali, A.-M., Shamsi, F., Zeraatpisheh, Z., Kamelmanesh, M.-M., and Nami, M. (2019). Development of distinct control networks through segregation and integration. Dev. For instance, in a previous study of Wang et al. Neurosci. doi: 10.1080/13803610600765752, Shipstead, Z., Redick, T. S., and Engle, R. W. (2012). Research on the impacts of cognitive training on cognition and brain systems has long been of great interest to cognitive neuroscientists over the last decades. (2019), indicate very limited cognitive transfer. Hanakawa et al. 41, 49100. The authors interpreted that gray volumes decrease in the fusiform gyrus were likely a consequence of neural pruning induced by frequent engagement of this region in encoding and retrieval of the imaginary abacus. Further research is needed to verify this speculation. PLoS One 8:e63614. (2013). PLoS One 7:e36410.
it strengthens the brain by activating the power of both hemispheres. Science 320, 15101512. Enhanced white matter tracts integrity in children with abacus training. doi: 10.1016/j.intell.2017.01.013, Sala, G., and Gobet, F. (2016). The effects of long-term abacus training on topological properties of brain functional networks. Working memory capacity and fluid abilities: examining the correlation between Operation Span and Raven. Transfer effects of abacus training on transient and sustained brain activation in the frontalparietal network. Acta Psychol. Brain regions simultaneously activated in a given cognitive task are often functionally connected during resting-state (Sala-Llonch et al., 2012). Thus, it is reasonable to speculate that AMC training may lead to behavioral improvements in mathematics, especially in the arithmetic ability. The relationship between cognitive ability and chess skill: a comprehensive meta-analysis. No evidence of intelligence improvement after working memory training: a randomized, placebo-controlled study. Moreover, the abacus teachers can adjust the difficulty levels of the arithmetic practice in a step-by-step manner to help students gradually develop a high level of AMC capacity. Interestingly, a longitudinal fMRI study by Tanaka et al. In the literature, training-induced activation decreases have been suggested to be accounted for by enhanced neural efficiency in brain regions that are sensitive to cognitive training (Dux et al., 2009). Res. This results in a stronger brain muscle, making it easier to learn any subject regardless of which hemisphere is responsible for its function. Effects of Abacus training on the intelligence of Sudanese children. J. Exp. Are you tired of going to math learning centers/tutoring classes and having your child do repetitive work day-after-day? FUN and EASY! Cogn. doi: 10.1007/s00426-013-0535-3. After training, the Raven intelligence performance was significantly improved in the AMC group as compared to the control group. Lang. doi: 10.1080/23273798.2015.1047459, Irwing, P., Hamza, A., Khaleefa, O., and Lynn, R. (2008). Child. Moreover, activation decreases in the occipitotemporal junction were significantly correlated with performance gains of the n-back task in the AMC group. (2011) found that children with 3 years AMC training showed enhanced white matter fractional anisotropy in the occipitotemporal junction, a key pathway linking the fusiform gyrus and various cortical and subcortical regions. Mol. Except. Hum. Diamond, A., and Lee, K. (2011). This is something we do without even trying. To date, the effectiveness of many existing training programs remains inconclusive. Thanks a ton! Intelligence 61, 130139. Psychon. doi: 10.1037/a0024427. In summary, our review suggests that AMC training has the potential to improve cognitive abilities including mathematics, working memory and numerical magnitude processing. Further research engaging similar AMC training in different age groups is needed to examine whether age would moderate AMC training outcomes. Additionally, better mental-set shifting performance was correlated with lower frontal-parietal activation in the AMC-trained children but was associated with greater frontal-parietal activation in the controls. Still, a number of important issues remain uninvestigated, and we anticipate that future studies will solve these issues. It is thus plausible to speculate that frequent involvements of the frontal-parietal regions during training lead to enhanced neural efficiency of these areas, which may in turn facilitate memory updating. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Es lo maximo super recomendable! doi: 10.1016/0010-0277(83)90035-5, Hatta, T., Hirose, T., Ikeda, K., and Fukuhara, H. (1989). Trends Cogn. (2010).
45, 694696.
Individ. Given the functional role of the visual cortical areas in visuospatial encoding (Engel et al., 1994; Malach et al., 1995), Li et al. The participants were randomly divided into two groups who either received AMC training from the 1st to the 6th grade or received similar amounts of additional standard math learning.
Evaluation of memory in Abacus learners. (2016). (B) The number 256371 is represented by the white beads on the abacus.
In conclusion, the current review provides a brief summary for the existing literature about the effects of AMC training that we believe have yielded particular insights to the field of cognitive training. This result provided further insight into the AMC-induced neural plasticity, for changes in brain morphology could be seen as one of the strongest evidences for the training-induced neural plasticity. 
Abacus Mental Math is giving back what belongs to children--fast, mental math powers! Does your child love math and want to take it to the next level? You mentally move the elephant to chase the mouse; they mentally move the beads to do the math. abacus My 5 year old is taking this class and is just entering kindergarten next week. Recently, Cui et al. Comput. (2015). doi: 10.1207/s1532690xci0801_2, Miyake, A., Friedman, N. P., Emerson, M. J., Witzki, A. H., Howerter, A., and Wager, T. D. (2000). (2016) conducted a longitudinal training program in which 190 primary school students were randomly assigned into two groups who had received either 3 years AMC training or similar amounts of additional standard math curriculum. Abacus Mental Math is a must-have tool for every child. (2011) separately reported that children with 1 year AMC training performed better than their peers on different visuospatial memory span tests. Res. Moreover, during the past decades, physical abacus has been utilized as a computational aid for arithmetic operations in blind persons (Gissoni, 1963). Available online at: https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.07589 (accessed April 16, 2019). (2006). Superior digit memory of abacus experts: an event-related functional MRI study. *Correspondence: Chunjie Wang, cjwang@hznu.edu.cn, Fundamentals of 21st Century Neuroscience, View all
Modular segregation of task-dependent brain networks contributes to the development of executive function in children. Training on abacus-based mental calculation enhances visuospatial working memory in children. 29, 13181324. Trends Cogn. Rev. Now, 8 months in, she can literally add and subtract eight numbers at a time IN SECONDS IN HER HEAD faster than I can! Third, comparisons between AMC training and other cognitive training programs should be considered for future AMC research. doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.23.6.832, Hatano, G., Miyake, Y., and Binks, M. G. (1977). Alloway, T. P., and Alloway, R. G. (2010).
Gray, J. R., and Thompson, P. M. (2004). This result is consistent with the findings by Wang et al. Gen. 141, 134149.
After training, the study found larger improvements on visuospatial span tests in the AMC group relative to the controls. It provides a framework to support a wide range of cognitive activities such as language processing, problem solving and mathematics (Kane et al., 2007; Alloway and Alloway, 2010; Huettig and Janse, 2015). Nat. Dev. Psychol. 31, 161168. J. Exp.
These findings provide further evidence that neural processes in the frontal-parietal regions may become more efficient as a function of AMC training. Although the activation differences could be explained by the employment of different behavioral strategies for the two groups, pre-training individual differences might have affected the results. 3, 313. Want to optimize executive functions and academic outcomes? Cogn. Tired of going to math learning centers/ tutoring and having your child do repetitive work day after day? Cogn.
abacus mental math arithmetic visit Considering AMC users extraordinary gains in arithmetic ability, a question worth exploring is whether this arithmetic advantage is accompanied by an advancement in basic numerical magnitude processing. Increases MEMORY, FOCUS, listening skills, imagination, creativity. doi: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2017.02.002. Dev. However, the study utilized a passive control group that could not rule out confounds from placebo effects. Preliminary evidence that allelic variation in the LMX1A gene influences training-related working memory improvement. Ser. 138, 628654. Failure of working memory training to enhance cognition or intelligence. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01948.x, Kim, S. H., Han, D. H., Lee, Y. S., Kim, B. N., Cheong, J. H., and Han, S. H. (2014). Giedd, J. N. (2004).
3:315. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00315, Thompson, T. W., Waskom, M. L., Garel, K. L. A., Cardenas-Iniguez, C., Reynolds, G. O., Winter, R., et al. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2013.08.010, Becker, C., and Kalina, K. (1975). Kane, M. J., Kwapil, T. R., Mcvay, J. C., and Myin-germeys, I. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2006.01.005, Rubinov, M., and Sporns, O. Thirteen months after her stroke, she reported that she was able to shift the mental arithmetic strategy from linguistic to visuospatial representations, and her superior capacity for digit memory recovered. Improves understanding of arithmetic. Malach, R., Reppas, J.
J. Educ. Neural correlates underlying mental calculation in abacus experts: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Similarly, child experts in AMC were reported to outperform their peers in various arithmetic computation problems (Stigler, 1984; Stigler et al., 1986; Amaiwa and Hatano, 1989; Chen et al., 2006). (C) When adding 256371 to 522000 for the first step, the gray beads are pushed up and down with both hands simultaneously. arXiv. Bull. For instance, Hatano et al. doi: 10.1126/science.1204529, Dong, S., Wang, C., Xie, Y., Hu, Y., Weng, J., and Chen, F. (2016). (2002) further examined neural correlates underlying short-term digit memory in AMC experts. doi: 10.1007/s12144-020-00717-0, Dahlin, E., Neely, A. S., Larsson, A., Bckman, L., and Nyberg, L. (2008). 14, 317324. The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex Frontal Lobe tasks: a latent variable analysis. However, before a more extended use that can be introduced into practice, we need to have a clearer and more systematic understanding of the cognitive and neural plasticity induced by AMC training. (2017). Therefore, combining multimodal data should be an important aspect of future AMC research. Rev. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0705843104, Frank, M. C., and Barner, D. (2012). Very interactive. Gong, D., He, H., Liu, D., Ma, W., Dong, L., Luo, C., et al. 32, 1021. Besides, many AMC studies have utilized cross-sectional designs. Like the work by Redick et al. 23, 832838. Dir. This promotes rapid, balanced, whole brain development, and fast mental math skills. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0139930, Wang, C., Hu, Y., Weng, J., Chen, F., and Liu, H. (2020). Fair, D. A., Dosenbach, N. U. F., Church, J. doi: 10.1006/cogp.1999.0734, Mulert, C., Jger, L., Schmitt, R., Bussfeld, P., Pogarell, O., Mller, H. J., et al. Given that the neural substrates supporting many cognitive functions are still developing until late childhood and adolescence (Giedd, 2004; Fair et al., 2007), it is possible that such cognitive or neural development during childhood may have buffered the effect of AMC training. doi: 10.3368/jhr.44.1.171. doi: 10.1177/0145482x6305700905. The result 778984 is represented by both the white and gray beads. First, experimental designs should be optimized in future AMC studies. It has been suggested that Ravens Progressive Matrices is largely a mathematical problem solving test in design format, which requires the application of several mathematical rules involving addition, subtraction and geometrical progression (Carpenter et al., 1990). Acad. The beads below the beam are called earth beads, while the beads above the beam are called heaven beads. Such an adaptive training on AMC can continuously challenge many cognitive processes, which may thus exert transfer effects to other cognitive abilities. Importantly, using voxel-based morphometry (VBM), Li et al. During this process, the eyes send a visual to the brain, placing a picture of the Soroban in their mind. doi: 10.1523/jneurosci.3195-18.2019, Wang, P., Liu, H. H., Zhu, X. T., Meng, T., Li, H. J., and Zuo, X. N. (2016). 7:335. Similarly, they found that AMC experts activated the bilateral frontal-parietal brain regions that were considered as a visuospatial working memory network, while the non-experts recruited a language-related brain network including the Brocas area. Intelligence 38, 529539. Additional evidence comes from several studies reporting that some of the AMC-related neural changes can be linked to training-related cognitive enhancements. Psychol. (2015) found that children with 2 years of AMC training performed better than their peers in a numerical magnitude comparison task, while there was no significant group difference in a physical size comparison task. However, given that the central executive components are moderately correlated with one another (Miyake et al., 2000), the advantage in one central executive component may be driven by an advancement in another central executive component. When she started if I asked her what 2+3 was, she would have to count on her fingers to figure it out.