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Kyle is a 7 year old boy who came to my office for routine check up. After my physical examination I asked him simple addition problems like 5 + 6, 5  + 3, etc. and he all got it without  counting fingers or thinking long. 

Mom proudly said, “He can do multiplication.”  So I quizzed him with easy  small number to start like 2 x 3, 3 x 3, 4 x 4, etc. And Kyle got all the right answer without blinking his eyes or thinking much. I went to 5 x 7 and he got it too.

I then demonstrated the concept of simple fraction ¼ to 4/4 using 3 green lego blocks and 1 red. I made it into a square. I lifted the red block and said, “This is one fourth.” I got two of the blocks, a green and a red, and Kyle said, “two-fourths.”  I grabbed three of the blocks and Kyle blurted, “three-fourths.” And when I held all four of the blocks, he immediately said, “four-fourths.”

During my conversation with Kyle’s mom I found that she is a psychology  major student. I asked her if she is familiar with Baye’s theory and she said  yes.

I requested the mother to teach Kyle simple probability problems and I demonstrated how to do it.

With the same four Lego blocks, 3 green and 1 red, I placed it inside an opaque plastic bag. Then I requested Kyle to reach for one of the Lego block and  show it to me. He followed me and got a green one. I asked him why he got a green one and not a red. He was stamped. So I explained to him that he got the  green, and not the red, because there are more green, 3, than red. And the probability is 75% for the green and 25% for the red.

I repeated the exercise and put back 3 green blocks and 1 red block  inside the plastic bag.

Kyle reached for one block and got a green again. I asked him why he got a green.

Kyle said, “75 per cent.”

We repeated the same probability exercise two more times. Each time he got a green one, Kyle would say, “75 per cent.”

The last move Kyle made was he grabbed 3 of the blocks and he got 2 green  and 1 red. So I explained to him that he got the red because he took 3 blocks  which is 75% of the whole group of blocks contained in the bag.

I instructed the mother to continue the probability exercise at home using 10 blocks with 9 of similar color and 1 different from the nine. This is to demonstrate 0.1 and 0.9 probability.

Before they left the examining room the mother told that the school has tested Kyle’s IQ and it was 130.

I think the concept of probability could be explained to children as young as seven years old.

Leo Leonidas, MD, FAAP

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