Let us be honest: our children are growing up in a world where answers appear faster than questions have time to form. One click, and special programs are already prompting, explaining, calculating. Without a doubt, this is very convenient for an educated adult. But for a child’s thinking, it is a serious challenge. Why is that?
“Because intelligence develops not at the moment of receiving a ready-made answer, but in the process of serious inner work, when a child independently searches for a solution, compares, memorizes, builds logic,” says leading expert in cognitive development, certified mental arithmetic trainer, founder and CEO of Neuro Mental Math LLC with a master’s degree in education Natella Horodetska.
“Your child is a genius. And we can prove it.” That is the slogan featured on her company’s website. Ms. Horodetska acquired this confidence more than 10 years ago, when she herself first learned about the incredible impact of mental arithmetic on children’s intelligence.
The impression was so strong that in 2016, in her homeland of Ukraine, Horodetska enthusiastically and quickly developed a business plan for advancing this field and received not only approval from the Ministry of Science and Education, but also a state grant, which she used to create a network of early intellectual development schools.
Ukrainian society also duly recognized her work: in 2021, for her special business contribution to the field of education in Ukraine, Natella Horodetska received the prestigious national Leader of Entrepreneurship award. And in 2024, for creating a unique method of teaching mental arithmetic and the “Oral Counting” online simulator, which is used by students and teachers all over the world, she was honored with an international award — the Order of Queen Anne.
We had an in-depth conversation with this specialist about the future of modern children in an era of rapid digitalization and learned her opinion on whether they will retain the ability to think independently or will rely on artificial intelligence in everything.
– Ms. Horodetska, the first and perhaps the most important question: why in your work, in the context of AI, do you speak so insistently specifically about a child’s intelligence?
– I am firmly convinced that this technology significantly accelerates access to information, but it does not form the inner strength of thinking. And a child is not a device that simply needs to be given a result. A child must develop attention, memory, logic, the ability to withstand mental strain, draw conclusions, and see patterns. All of this appears only through one’s own intellectual work.
One thing worries me: modern children are gradually losing the habit of the effort of thought. When the answer comes from an external source all the time, the child unlearns how to get to it independently. And yet it is precisely this path that builds intelligence. Not an instant prompt, but the inner work of the brain.
– So the problem is not in the technology itself, but in the fact that it replaces the thinking process?
– Exactly. I am not one of those who fight against progress. AI has already become part of our lives; denying it is pointless.
The question is different: what place do adults assign to it? If it is an auxiliary tool, it’s wonderful, but if it displaces a child’s living thinking, then we get a very dangerous substitution. A child must be able to reach any answer with their own mind, because only in this way does personal intellectual resilience develop.
– You have been actively introducing mental arithmetic into educational processes for many years. But in reality, isn’t it nothing more than fast mental calculation?
– Excuse me, but that is a very primitive view of a serious cognitive practice. Mental arithmetic is a powerful tool for the comprehensive development of the brain. It engages attention, working memory, concentration, speed of information processing, interhemispheric interaction, visual imagination, the ability to hold a sequence of actions and work mentally without external support. When a child calculates mentally, they train the ability not to fall apart within a task; they learn to hold the intellectual structure as a whole.
– So it is exactly what a child loses when answers come from outside and too quickly?
– Absolutely right. When answers come to a child from outside and too quickly, the child loses mental endurance. And this is a huge problem, because the habit of an instant prompt weakens attention and the capacity for self-analysis, reduces the sharpness of memory, and creates dependence on external intellectual support. Because of this, the child develops an illusion of knowledge. It seems to them that if the answer was found quickly, then they understood the material. But understanding does not arise automatically from contact with information. It arises when the brain has done its own work.
– Today, much is said in the United States about education and, in particular, about its accessibility for children with different developmental characteristics. How do you see this issue from within your professional practice?
– For me, this is a fundamentally important question. In the United States, the conversation about child development has indeed long gone beyond the old scheme in which there is only an average student and a single model of education for everyone. Today, a strong educational system is obliged to take different cognitive profiles into account.
I believe that intellectual development should not be a privilege only for those children for whom the standard academic model comes easily. The true strength of a teaching method is revealed when the teacher helps unlock the potential of children with different educational needs.
– So, in your understanding, a strong pedagogical method should work not only for “convenient” children?
– Of course! Moreover, if a method works only where a child would have had an easy time anyway, its value is severely limited. Modern pedagogy must be subtler, smarter, and more precise, and must take into account that a child may be talented but inattentive; capable but anxious; intellectually strong but in need of a different pace, a different presentation, a different structure of support.
I pay special attention to approaches that are adapted for children with ASD, ADHD, and other developmental characteristics. Because here the task is not simply to “deliver the material,” but to build a path that the child can actually follow without losing faith in their own abilities.
– In that case, what does the opposition “child’s intelligence vs. artificial intelligence” look like in an inclusive context?
– A child with developmental characteristics may already have increased fatigue, difficulties with sustaining attention, challenges with switching, overload from external stimuli. And if, in such a situation, parents rely only on technological compensation, they risk not developing the child’s strengths, but further reinforcing dependence on an external system.
Technologies can help. But they must not cancel the development of basic cognitive functions. Memory, concentration, inner composure, the skill of carrying a thought through to the end — none of this can be replaced by digital convenience. Especially in a child who already needs a more precise and careful pedagogical architecture.
– Do you mean that alongside traditional education, it is important to develop novel, alternative methodological approaches?
– Exactly. A high-quality methodological approach is a priceless treasure in which everything is taken into account: the child’s age, their way of perception, pace, level of cognitive load, stages of skill consolidation, emotional resilience. Our children live in conditions of constant distraction and external overload – traditional template solutions no longer work with them.
– Your original method is considered innovative. Is that because there is no other one like it on the market?
– Not for that reason. I relate to the approach in which a child’s intellectual development is built not on the principle of “training at any cost,” but represents a system of precise, professionally calculated work. This is especially important in an inclusive environment. There, one cannot act crudely.
– You do not believe in universal solutions at all?
– I believe in strong principles, but I do not believe in lazy universality. Every child, regardless of age, is a separate cognitive story. One has a strong imagination but weak concentration; another has a good memory but high anxiety; a third has non-standard thinking but finds it difficult to withstand a long sequence of actions. And if a teacher does not see this, it means they are working blindly. Therefore, in my professional worldview, intellectual development is always precise tuning.
– What do you consider the main sign that a child’s intelligence is developing correctly?
– The child becomes more internally composed. They sustain attention longer. They are less afraid of difficult tasks. They do not “fall apart” at the first difficulty. They begin not simply to answer, but to understand how they arrived at the answer. And a very important point: they derive pleasure both from the correct result and from the thinking process itself.
This is a very valuable shift, you know. When a child begins to feel: “I can think, I can cope, I can hold complexity,” they develop an inner support that then works far beyond the lesson.
– What place does AI have in your system? After all, you do not reject it entirely, do you?
– An auxiliary one, but not a central one. AI is useful for visualization, selecting materials, additional training, and information search. But it must not take the place of human intellectual work. Otherwise, the child stops building the thinking framework independently.
I would formulate it very simply: first, a child must develop their own cognitive support. And only then can technologies strengthen this foundation. If you do it the other way around, you will get a beautiful digital shell without inner strength.
– Many parents are afraid of overloading a child. How can one distinguish real development from pressure?
– By the result and the child’s condition. Real development makes the child stronger, while excess becomes the cause of nervous exhaustion, irritation, the emergence of fear of mistakes, and inner constriction. Therefore, the question is always not only in the amount of load, but also in the quality of the method. Competent intellectual training does not break a child, but gradually strengthens the thinking apparatus.
– If we compare natural intelligence and artificial intelligence, what is the fundamental difference between them?
– AI works with data arrays. A child develops as a living thinking system. In a child’s development there is will, curiosity, emotion, effort, vulnerability, gradual maturation, growth through mistake, a personal pace. A machine does not go through the path of inner becoming. A child does.
That is why we have no right to reduce education to the transfer of ready-made answers. It is important for teachers in schools to shape children into people who know how to think, doubt, analyze – independently!
Therefore today we, adults – teachers, parents, officials in the field of education – must finally decide whom exactly we are raising: children who conveniently use someone else’s intelligence, or children who develop their own? I believe this is the main question of our era. AI can and should help a person, but it will never be able to replace a living, trained, independent mind!
