Our column continues. Today we'll tell you about one more interesting research of the influence of Go on children. In 2006 the Japanese Go Association (Nihon Kiin) decided to hold its own research of the effect that taking Go lessons has on children. They consulted a world-famous Japanese neurobiologist — professor Kawashima Ryuta from Tohoku University. Regular elementary school students of 1-5 grade took part in this experiment. In order to make it more reliable only the children who had had no prior knowledge of the game were chosen. Then they would start learning from a teacher from the Japanese Go Association. The course lasted for 3 months at the rate of one one-hour class once a week. There were 30-40 children in one class, and 130 children of different ages in total. Before the course they took several psychological tests to check their IQ, short-term memory, and the general level of their cognitive functions. After a comparison the researchers found that the results improved significantly.
This research became the first reliable proof that learning Go has a positive effect on child development. We already wrote about the influence of Go on children in our WAGC project "People and Go". The governor of Magadan region Sergei Nosov shared some interesting facts of an experiment that was held in one of the schools there.
The link to that interview is in the profile header. More #GoFacts on our website.
Source: "o Go" magazine, A. Dinerstein.
