A team from Inserm, France's National Institute for Health and Medical Research, explored when and how children develop an understanding of temporal units. Co-author Georges Dellatolas, a specialist in child neuropsychology, noted: "Until now, this question had been little explored. Most experiments focused on children's ability to reproduce or classify time intervals under one minute."
The study involved 57 girls and 47 boys aged 6 to 11 from schools in the Paris region. Researchers assessed the children's knowledge of time units and examined links to various numerical skills.
Key findings identified four factors essential for grasping larger time units: first, academic number knowledge—reading, writing, and calculating with numbers. Second, associating numbers with distances. Third, developing working memory. Fourth, contextualizing numbers effectively.
Dellatolas summarizes: "The main takeaway is that time knowledge develops primarily between ages 6 and 8, closely tied to numerical skills."
These results mark an initial step. Future work will expand to larger groups by age, and include children with conditions affecting time processing, such as dyslexia or certain brain tumors. The goal: "improve care through tailored methods for time unit acquisition."
