That being said, evidence suggests that children raised in particular cultures exhibit higher number sense attributes than those raised elsewhere. For example, Chinese children seem more successful than Finnish students, (Aunio et al., 2006), reflecting more general trends in which Chinese children outperform those in the West (Ginsburg et al., 1997). There is also evidence that number sense may be gender-determined, although the picture is by no means clear. For example, in their examination of Welsh children’s educational achievement, Gorard et al. (2001) found a very confusing gender-related picture, while others have indicated a gender-independent phenomenon (Dehaene, 1997; Nunes & Bryant, 1996). Such issues are confounded by evidence that girls have a better-developed number sense than boys (Demie, 2001) and that boys have a better-developed number sense than girls (Melhuish et al., 2008). This latter difference seems linked to parental education levels: the more highly educated the parents the better boys perform (Penner & Paret, 2008), highlighting the significant influence of the child’s family’s socio-economic status in the development of number sense (Melhuish et al., 2008; Starkey et al., 2004).
Such inconsistency may lie in differences in the measures used, although what is clear is that number sense is not only a predictor of later mathematical success, both in the short (Aubrey & Godfrey, 2003; Aunio & Niemivirta, 2010; Passolunghi & Lanfranchi, 2012) and the longer term (Aubrey et al. 2006; Aunola et al., 2004), but also brings numbers to life and enhances our relationships with them (Robinson et al., 2002). Significantly, basic counting and enumerations skills have been found to be predictive of later arithmetical competence in England, Finland, Flanders, USA, Canada and Taiwan respectively (Aubrey & Godfrey, 2003; Aunola et al., 2004; Desoete et al, 2009; Jordan et al., 2007; LeFevre et al., 2006; Yang & Li, 2008). In other words, there is an international consensus that poorly developed number sense underlies later mathematical failures (Jordan et al, 2009; Gersten et al., 2005; Malofeeva et al., 2004). Moreover, without appropriate intervention, which research shows can be effective (Fuchs et al., 2010; Van Luit & Schopman, 2000; Van Nes & Van Eerde, 2010), children who start school with limited number sense are likely to remain low achievers throughout their schooling (Aubrey et al., 2006; Geary, 2013).