Five-month-old girl knows arithmetic and 1000 words in China

As reported by Beijing News a mother in Beijing claims her daughter of five months named CiCi cannot yet speak but knows how to add, subtract, do simple multiplication and division operations, and that she knows a thousand Chinese characters.

In front of the reporter CiCi’s mother Mrs. Ma wrote down the following math problem: 5 plus 3, divide by 2, subtract 1, then add 6. Then she held up 2 paper cards with the numbers 9 and 13. In less than 30 seconds CiCi hugged the paper card with the number 9!    The Beijing News reporter proceeded to write down three more questions, including one involving a radical operation. CiCi earned a perfect score.

Then Mrs. Ma held a flashcard with the Chinese character for "thunder'' in her left hand and one with the character for "snow" in her right hand. She asked the baby girl to point to ‘thunder’, and she did!

Mrs. Ma and her husband are both professionals. They had their daughter when they were nearly 30 years old. When CiCi was born they became full-time parents. Cici's home is full of flashcards. The TV, refrigerator, sofa, and other items in the home all have the name of the corresponding item on them.

Mrs. Ma often listened to classical music during pregnancy. On CiCi’s first day as a newborn she showed the little girl how to "point to the card" already! When the girl was two months old, her attention could already stay focused for 30 minutes. When she was 4 and one half months old, her mother began to make her own cards for their daughter, teaching her literacy and mathematics. So their girl could learn English, they had a British foreign student live in their house for one year.

Mrs. Ma said they never force her daughter to do this; before they start she asks, "Do you want to do this?" before they start teaching her something.  When CiCi gets tired or hungry, they stop immediately.