1Post-Graduate Student,
2Associate Professor,
*Corresponding Author: Dr. Sneha Jaiswal, Post-Graduate Student,
Abacus is an ancient instrument used for calculating numbers through basic arithmetic system. It has become popular among children of small ages as it helps in understanding basic arithmetic system & also helps in expanding brain usage. It activates nerve cells by providing stimuli like moving fingers & talking aloud. However, Increase in concentration of abacus students may be pre-dominating effect of training program. So this study was taken up to see effect of abacus learning on attention of children.
To test & compare different types of attention in abacus users & non users.
A total of 40 abacus users (upto 7 levels of abacus training) and 40 abacus non users who were of 10–15 years were tested for focussed attention by colour trail test, sustained attention by children paced auditory serial addition test and divided attention by symbol digit modality test. Results were statistically analysed using student ‘t’ test.
Abacus users performed better than the controls in colour trail test (p=0.0001), children paced auditory serial addition test (p=0.01) and symbol digit modality test (p=0.01).
Abacus users have better focussed attention, sustained attention and divided attention compared to non abacus users.
Abacus, Focussed attention, Sustained attention, Divided attention
