Overview
- The team followed children from about 4½ to 7½ years, filming twice-yearly addition sessions to record when strategy use shifted.
- Early finger users who later stopped outperformed peers who never counted on fingers and those who continued relying on them.
- At 7½ years, about 43% were ex-finger counters, 50% still used fingers, and 7% had never used them.
- Findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal Developmental Psychology, adding multi-year evidence on arithmetic development.
- Lead author Catherine Thevenot advises allowing finger counting in early years, noting reliance past about eight can signal difficulties even as it supports progress.