Any premature instruction arrests development. I find this quote confusing. It sounds like a farfetched idea. Children like counting. Which jibes nicely with the goals annunciated in the NCTM Standrads.
Technology is also available.
A competition was held between a United States executive using a calculator and an Asian businessman using the ancient abacus. While the American poked around trying to find the plus button, the Asian smoothly manipulated the wooden beans and water buffalo horn pegs. See also the review on MAA Online . Alex Bogomolny has started and still maintains a popular Web site Interactive Mathematics Miscellany and Puzzles to which he brought more than 10 years of college instruction and, at least as much, programming experience. He holds M.S. degree in Mathematics from the Moscow State University and Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.