Construction play frequency and relations with spatial ability and mathematics performance

The nature of the home mathematics environment (which includes numerical and spatial activities at home) is related to children's spatial and mathematics performance. The current study investigated concrete and digital construction play frequency and relations with spatial and mathematical skills. Participants aged 7-9 years (N = 634) reported their frequency of construction play (concrete and digital) and completed direct measures of spatial ability and mathematics performance. Correlations between measures revealed no association between construction play frequency and outcome measures. This suggests that quantity of construction play is not pertinent for spatial and mathematics skills, however future research should explore whether quality of play is an important factor.

The use of eye-tracking technology as a tool to evaluate social cognition in people with an intellectual disability: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Relatively little is known about social cognition in people with intellectual disability (ID), and how this may support understanding of co-occurring autism. A limitation of previous research is that traditional social-cognitive tasks place a demand on domain-general cognition and language abilities. These tasks are not suitable for people with ID and lack the sensitivity to detect subtle social-cognitive processes. In autism research, eye-tracking technology has offered an effective method of evaluating social cognition-indicating associations between visual social attention and autism characteristics. The present systematic review synthesised research which has used eye-tracking technology to study social cognition in ID. A meta-analysis was used to explore whether visual attention on socially salient regions (SSRs) of stimuli during these tasks correlated with degree of autism characteristics presented on clinical assessment tools.

METHOD

Searches were conducted using four databases, research mailing lists, and citation tracking. Following in-depth screening and exclusion of studies with low methodological quality, 49 articles were included in the review. A correlational meta-analysis was run on Pearson's r values obtained from twelve studies, reporting the relationship between visual attention on SSRs and autism characteristics.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

Eye-tracking technology was used to measure different social-cognitive abilities across a range of syndromic and non-syndromic ID groups. Restricted scan paths and eye-region avoidance appeared to impact people's ability to make explicit inferences about mental states and social cues. Readiness to attend to social stimuli also varied depending on social content and degree of familiarity. A meta-analysis using a random effects model revealed a significant negative correlation (r = -.28, [95% CI -.47, -.08]) between visual attention on SSRs and autism characteristics across ID groups. Together, these findings highlight how eye-tracking can be used as an accessible tool to measure more subtle social-cognitive processes, which appear to reflect variability in observable behaviour. Further research is needed to be able to explore additional covariates (e.g. ID severity, ADHD, anxiety) which may be related to visual attention on SSRs, to different degrees within syndromic and non-syndromic ID groups, in order to determine the specificity of the association with autism characteristics.

Route-learning strategies in typical and atypical development; eye tracking reveals atypical landmark selection in Williams syndrome

BACKGROUND

Successful navigation is crucial to everyday life. Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) have impaired spatial abilities. This includes a deficit in spatial navigation abilities such as learning the route from A to B. To-date, to determine whether participants attend to landmarks when learning a route, landmark recall tasks have been employed after the route learning experience. Here, we combined virtual reality and eye tracking technologies, for the first time, to measure landmark use in typically developing (TD) children and participants with WS during route-learning.

METHOD

Nineteen individuals with WS were asked to learn a route in a sparse environment (few landmarks) and in a rich environment (many landmarks) whilst their eye movements were recorded. Looking times towards landmarks were compared to TD children aged 6, 8 and 10 years. Changes in attention to landmarks during the learning process were also recorded.

RESULTS

The WS group made fewer looks to landmarks overall, but all participants looked for longer at landmarks that were at junctions and along the paths of the maze than landmarks that were in the distance. Few differences were observed in route learning between the sparse and rich environments. In contrast to the TD groups, those in the WS group were as likely to look at non-unique landmarks as landmarks at junctions and on paths.

DISCUSSION

The current results demonstrate that attention to landmarks during route learning reflects the types of landmarks remembered in memory tasks, that individuals with WS can learn a route if given sufficient exposure, but that this is accomplished within the context of an impaired ability to select appropriate landmarks.

Drawing ability in typical and atypical development; colour cues and the effect of oblique lines

BACKGROUND

Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) have poor drawing ability. Here, we investigated whether colour could be used as a facilitation cue during a drawing task.

METHOD

Participants with WS and non-verbal ability matched typically developing (TD) children were shown line figures presented on a 3 by 3 dot matrix, and asked to replicate the figures by drawing on an empty dot matrix. The dots of the matrix were either all black (control condition), or nine different coloured dots (colour condition). In a third condition, which also used coloured dots, participants were additionally asked to verbalise the colours of the dots prior to replicating the line drawings (colour-verbal condition).

RESULTS

Performance was stronger in both WS and TD groups on the two coloured conditions, compared with the control condition. However, the facilitation effect of colour was significantly weaker in the WS group than in the TD group. Replication of oblique line segments was less successful than replication of non-oblique line segments for both groups; this effect was reduced by colour facilitation in the TD group only. Verbalising the colours had no additional impact on performance in either group.

CONCLUSION

We suggest that colour acted as a cue to individuate the dots, thus enabling participants to better ascertain the spatial relationships between the parts of each figure, to determine the start and end points of component lines, and to determine the correspondence between the model and their replication. The reduced facilitation in the WS group is discussed in relation to the effect of oblique versus non-oblique lines, the use of atypical drawing strategies, and reduced attention to the model when drawing the replication.

Do individuals with intellectual disability select appropriate objects as landmarks when learning a new route?

BACKGROUND

The present study was aimed at investigating the selection of landmarks by individuals with intellectual disability (ID). The hypothesis was that they would be less efficient than individuals without IDs in the selection of landmarks when learning a new route.

METHODS

The experiment took place in a natural setting with a group of participants with ID and a group of control participants matched by chronological age. The participants were first guided along a route situated in an unfamiliar district. Then, they had to guide the experimenter along the route while pointing to all the objects and features they found useful for wayfinding.

RESULTS

The designated objects were categorised as a function of their landmarks properties. There were significant differences between the two groups for non-permanent landmarks, distant landmarks and non-unique landmarks. The two groups selected landmarks near intersections in the same proportions. However, the individuals with ID selected more non-unique landmarks and less textual signage than the control group at these decision points.

CONCLUSION

Individuals with ID seem to be less efficient than individuals without disability in landmark selection. This may limit their wayfinding abilities in their day-to-day travelling. This may also account for their difficulties in obtaining the kind of spatial knowledge which relates to the configural structure of their environment.

Block design performance in the Williams syndrome phenotype: a problem with mental imagery?

Williams syndrome (WS) is a rare genetic disorder which, among other characteristics, has a distinctive cognitive profile. Nonverbal abilities are generally poor in relation to verbal abilities, but also show varying levels of ability in relation to each other. Performance on block construction tasks represents arguably the weakest nonverbal ability in WS. In this study we examined two requirements of block construction tasks in 21 individuals with WS and 21 typically developing (TD) control individuals. The Squares tasks, a novel two-dimensional block construction task, manipulated patterns by segmentation and perceptual cohesiveness to investigate the first factor, processing preference (local or global), and by obliqueness to examine the second factor, the ability to use mental imagery. These two factors were investigated directly by the Children's Embeded Figures Test (CEFT; Witkin, Oltman, Raskin, & Karp, 1971) and a mental rotation task respectively. Results showed that individuals with WS did not differ from the TD group in their processing style. However, the ability to use mental imagery was significantly poorer in the WS group than the TD group. This suggests that weak performance on the block construction tasks in WS may relate to an inability to use mental imagery.