Jessica Cantlon

This is great! I have made this claim w/o great data (in a lecture I give to teachers on promoting girls in STEM) by saying something like “nobody has reported gender differences in these earliest numerical abilities.” I’m so happy to have this study to point to! Thank you!

Have ypu ever thought that maybe most girls don't like science and engineering?

Seems unlikely, especially given that the percentage of women in different STEM fields has varied over the years - increasing in some, decreasing in others. Computer operating/programming used to be women's work, then it became men's work, and now it's slowly becoming more equal.

If it were down to innate differences, that would imply that male and female brains change dramatically from year to year, with women's interest in the sciences magically appearing from nothing as soon as it became harder to bar them from doing it mere decades ago.

very valuable study, thank you ! But please use correct terms the findings, i.e. sex not gender differences (gender in itself is a construct kids get socialised into). thank you !

Incorrect. Sex and gender do not vary independently. There are some levels of socialisation in conjunction with several biological determinants. The scientific literature is clear on this.

This is great but a lot of the replies are making me sad for the world.

*Sex differences. (Not 'gender' differences)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/28972892/ …

Were the trans adolescents in the study on puberty blockers and/or sex hormones at the time of the study? - I don’t have access to the full study

Give me a minute and I'll check for you.

So my question is how do we separate an endogenous characteristic from the possible effects of hormone treatment on neurological development? Or am I misunderstanding the study?

Possibly a more controlled follow-up is necessary, it seems.