Diversity of spatial activities and parents' spatial talk complexity predict preschoolers' gains in spatial skills

Children's spatial activities and parental spatial talk were measured to examine their associations with variability in preschoolers' spatial skills (N = 113, Mage = 4 years, 4 months; 51% female; 80% White, 11% Black, and 9% other). Parents who reported more diversity in daily spatial activities and used longer spatial talk utterances during a spatial activity had children with greater gains in spatial skills from ages 4 to 5 (β = .17 and β = .40, respectively). Importantly, this study is the first to move beyond frequency counts of spatial input and investigate the links among the diversity of children's daily spatial activities, as well as the complexity of parents' spatial language across different contexts, and preschoolers' gains in spatial skills, an important predictor of later STEM success.

Assessing the impact of LEGO® construction training on spatial and mathematical skills

Lego construction ability is associated with a variety of spatial skills and mathematical outcomes. However, it is unknown whether these relations are causal. We aimed to establish the causal impact of Lego construction training on: Lego construction ability; a broad range of spatial skills; and on mathematical outcomes in 7-9-year-olds. We also aimed to identify how this causal impact differs for digital versus physical Lego construction training. One-hundred and ninety-eight children took part in a six-week training programme, delivered twice weekly as a school lunch time club. They completed either physical Lego training (N = 59), digital Lego training (N = 64), or an active control condition (crafts; N = 75). All children completed baseline and follow-up measures of spatial skills (disembedding, visuo-spatial working memory, spatial scaling, mental rotation, and performance on a spatial-numerical task, the number line task), mathematical outcomes (geometry, arithmetic, and overall mathematical skills) and Lego construction ability. Exploratory analyses revealed evidence for near transfer (Lego construction ability) and some evidence for far transfer (arithmetic) of Lego training, but overall transfer was limited. Despite this, we identified key areas for further development (explicit focus on spatial strategies, training for teachers, and embedding the programme within a mathematical context). The findings of this study can be used to inform future development of Lego construction training programmes to support mathematics learning.

Cognitive Foundations of Early Mathematics: Investigating the Unique Contributions of Numerical, Executive Function, and Spatial Skills

There is an emerging consensus that numerical, executive function (EF), and spatial skills are foundational to children's mathematical learning and development. Moreover, each skill has been theorized to relate to mathematics for different reasons. Thus, it is possible that each cognitive construct is related to mathematics through distinct pathways. The present study tests this hypothesis. One-hundred and eighty 4- to 9-year-olds (Mage = 6.21) completed a battery of numerical, EF, spatial, and mathematics measures. Factor analyses revealed strong, but separable, relations between children's numerical, EF, and spatial skills. Moreover, the three-factor model (i.e., modelling numerical, EF, and spatial skills as separate latent variables) fit the data better than a general intelligence (g-factor) model. While EF skills were the only unique predictor of number line performance, spatial skills were the only unique predictor of arithmetic (addition) performance. Additionally, spatial skills were related to the use of more advanced addition strategies (e.g., composition/decomposition and retrieval), which in turn were related to children's overall arithmetic performance. That is, children's strategy use fully mediated the relation between spatial skills and arithmetic performance. Taken together, these findings provide new insights into the cognitive foundations of early mathematics, with implications for assessment and instruction moving forward.

Investigating associations between parent engagement and toddlers' mathematics performance

Early mathematics skills relate to later mathematics achievement and educational attainment, which in turn predict career choice, income, health and financial decision-making. Critically, large differences exist among children in early mathematics performance, with parental mathematics engagement being a key predictor. However, most prior work has examined mothers' mathematics engagement with their preschool- and school-aged children. In this Registered Report, we tested concurrent associations between mothers' and fathers' engagement in mathematics activities with their 2- to 3-year-old toddlers and children's mathematics performance. Mothers and fathers did not differ in their engagement in mathematics activities, and both parents' mathematics engagement related to toddlers' mathematics skills. Fathers' mathematics engagement was associated with toddlers' number and mathematics language skills, but not their spatial skills. Mothers' mathematics engagement was only associated with toddlers' mathematics language skills. Critically, associations may be domain-specific, as parents' literacy engagement did not relate to measures of mathematics performance above their mathematics engagement. Mothers' and fathers' mathematics activities uniquely relate to toddlers' developing mathematics skills, and future work on the nuances of these associations is needed.

Everyday Spatial Behavioral Questionnaire 11 Component Model

The present work builds on prior research to develop the Everyday Spatial Behavioral Questionnaire (ESBQ or EBQ), a measure of self-reported difficulty in performing familiar activities that involve spatial thinking. A principal component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were employed to identify reliable categories of everyday spatial behaviors. A test of measurement invariance was employed across two independent samples of college students to validate an 11-Component Model as a representation of the ESBQ. The model met criteria necessary to represent a strong model in terms of the ESBQ having the same structure and meaning in both samples. Both samples had eight of the 11 sub-scales with Cronbach alphas greater than .7, while for five of these eight sub-scales Cronbach alphas were greater than .8. Alphas were lower in the second sample than the first. The scales require construct and criterion-related validity assessment.

A Growth Mindset Message Leads Parents to Choose More Challenging Learning Activities

Prior research has shown that the home learning environment (HLE) is critical in the development of spatial skills and that various parental beliefs influence the HLE. However, a comprehensive analysis of the impact of different parental beliefs on the spatial HLE remains lacking, leaving unanswered questions about which specific parental beliefs are most influential and whether inducing a growth mindset can enhance the spatial HLE. To address these gaps, we conducted an online study with parents of 3- to 5-year-olds. We found that parents' growth mindset about their children's ability strongly predicted the spatial HLE after controlling for parents' motivational beliefs about their children, beliefs about their own ability, children's age, children's gender, and family SES. Further, reading an article about growth mindset led parents to choose more challenging spatial learning activities for their children. These findings highlight the critical role of parents' growth mindset in the spatial HLE. Crucially, these findings demonstrate that general growth mindset messages without specific suggestions for parental practices can influence parental behavior intentions. Further, these effects were also observed in the control domain of literacy, underscoring the broad relevance of the growth mindset in the HLE.

Instructors' Gestural Accuracy Affects Geology Learning in Interaction with Students' Spatial Skills

Complex and often unobservable STEM constructs and processes are represented using a variety of representations, including iconic gestures in which the body is configured or moved to resemble a referent's spatial properties or actions. Earlier researchers have suggested links between gesturing and expertise, leading some to recommend instructional gestures. Earlier research, however, has been largely correlational; furthermore, some gestures may be made with misleading positions or movements. Using the illustrative topic of strike in structural geology, we investigated the existence and impact of inaccurate instructional gestures. In Study 1, we examined videotapes of participants who had been asked to explain strikes to another person. We observed inaccurate (non-horizontal) strike gestures not only among novices (first introduced to strike during the study itself, n = 68) but also among participants who had greater expertise in geology (n = 21). In Study 2, we randomly assigned novices (N = 167) to watch video lessons in which the instructor accompanied verbal explanations of strikes with accurate, inaccurate, or no iconic gestures and tested students' learning on a strike-mapping task. Students with low spatial-perception skills showed no impact of their gestural condition on performance. Students with high spatial-perception skills showed no advantage from accurate gestures but performed significantly worse in the inaccurate-gesture condition. Findings suggest that recommendations to use gestures during instruction should include professional development programs that reduce the occurrence of inaccurate gestures.

Understanding the complexities of mathematical cognition: A multi-level framework

Mathematics skills are associated with future employment, well-being, and quality of life. However, many adults and children fail to learn the mathematics skills they require. To improve this situation, we need to have a better understanding of the processes of learning and performing mathematics. Over the past two decades, there has been a substantial growth in psychological research focusing on mathematics. However, to make further progress, we need to pay greater attention to the nature of, and multiple elements involved in, mathematical cognition. Mathematics is not a single construct; rather, overall mathematics achievement is comprised of proficiency with specific components of mathematics (e.g., number fact knowledge, algebraic thinking), which in turn recruit basic mathematical processes (e.g., magnitude comparison, pattern recognition). General cognitive skills and different learning experiences influence the development of each component of mathematics as well as the links between them. Here, I propose and provide evidence for a framework that structures how these components of mathematics fit together. This framework allows us to make sense of the proliferation of empirical findings concerning influences on mathematical cognition and can guide the questions we ask, identifying where we are missing both research evidence and models of specific mechanisms.

Daily Gender and Cognition: A Person-Specific Behavioral Network Analysis

Gender is person-specific, and it influences and is influenced by a breadth of multidimensional psychological factors, including cognition. Directionality is important for research on gender and cognition, as debate surrounds, for instance, whether masculine self-concepts precede spatial skills, or whether the reverse is true. In order to provide novel insights into the individualized nature of these relations, a person-specific network approach devised by Peter Molenaar and the first author - group iterative multiple model estimation for multiple solutions (GIMME-MS) - was applied to 75-day intensive longitudinal data on gender self-concept (i.e., femininity-masculinity, instrumentality, and expressivity) and cognition (i.e., mental rotations and verbal recall) from 103 young adults. GIMME-MS estimates individualized networks that contain same-day and next-day directed relations, prioritizing relations common across participants. It is ideal for analyzing behavioral time series with unclear directionality, as it generates multiple solutions from which an optimal one is selected. GIMME-MS revealed notable heterogeneity in the presence, direction, and nature of relations from gender self-concept to cognition (∼26% of participants) and vice versa (∼21% of participants). Findings are wholly novel in revealing the person-specific nature of gender and its cognitive dynamics, yet somehow, unsurprising given the revolutionary corpus of Peter Molenaar.

Building Numeracy Skills: Associations between DUPLO® Block Construction and Numeracy in Early Childhood

Research shows that children's block construction skills are positively associated with their concurrent and later mathematics performance. Furthermore, there is evidence that block construction training is particularly beneficial for improving early mathematics skills in children from low-Socio Economic Status (SES) groups who are known to have lower maths performance than their peers. The current study investigates (a) the association between block construction and mathematics in children just before the start of formal schooling (4 years-of-age in the UK) and (b) whether the association between block construction and mathematics differs between children from more compared to less affluent families. Participants in this study included 116 children (M = 3 years 11 months, SD = 3 months) who all completed numeracy, block construction, and receptive vocabulary tasks. Socio-economic status and demographic information (child age, gender, ethnicity) were also obtained from parents. Findings show a strong positive association between block construction and early numeracy skills. Block construction skills explained approximately 5% of the variation in numeracy, even after controlling for age in months, household income, and child receptive vocabulary. When separated by SES group, for children from less affluent families, block construction explained a significant amount of variability (14.5%) in numeracy performance after covariates. For children from more affluent families, block construction did not explain a significant amount of variation in numeracy. These findings suggest that, interventions involving block construction skills may help to reduce SES-based attainment gaps in UK children's mathematics achievement.

Tracing the origins of the STEM gender gap: The contribution of childhood spatial skills

Despite some gains, women continue to be underrepresented in many science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. Using a national longitudinal dataset of 690 participants born in 1991, we tested whether spatial skills, measured in middle childhood, would help explain this gender gap. We modeled the relation between 4th-grade spatial skills and STEM majors while simultaneously accounting for competing cognitive and motivational mechanisms. Strong spatial skills in 4th grade directly increased the likelihood of choosing STEM college majors, above and beyond math achievement and motivation, verbal achievement and motivation, and family background. Additionally, 4th-grade spatial skills indirectly predicted STEM major choice via math achievement and motivation in the intervening years. Further, our findings suggest that gender differences in 4th-grade spatial skills contribute to women's underrepresentation in STEM majors. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Using a national longitudinal dataset, we found 4th-grade spatial skills directly predicted STEM college major choice after accounting for multiple cognitive and motivational mechanisms. Strong spatial skills in 4th grade also elevated STEM major choice via enhanced math achievement and motivation in the intervening years. Gender differences in 4th-grade spatial skills contributed to women's underrepresentation in STEM college majors.

EXPRESS: Sex Differences in Social and Spatial Perspective Taking: A Replication and Extension of Tarampi et al. (2016)

Tarampi and colleagues (2016) found that females performed better on spatial perspective-taking tasks when social information was present. They interpreted this finding to suggest that adding social information would uniquely improve the performance of females due to their better social perspective taking. In this replication and extension study, we tested an alternative explanation for their results: the tasks with social information also provided spatial information which could explain improved performance. In a study with 278 college students, we used the two versions of the tasks from their study (no social or spatial information and with social and spatial information) and added two versions that isolate only social and only spatial information. Our replication of Tarampi et al.'s analyses found no difference in females' performance on the tasks, however, when both females and males were included, we found some evidence for better performance in the social and spatial condition. Examining both males' and females' performance in all four conditions, we found that males outperformed females. In addition, participants who completed tasks with spatial information performed better. Findings suggest the difference observed in Tarampi et al. may have been due to the inclusion of spatial information, not social information, that improves task performance for both females and males. These results suggest that spatial perspective-taking performance is better when given even subtle spatial cues, but that social information does not appear to improve performance, despite ties with social perspective taking.

Intrauterine Device Use: A New Frontier for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology

Intrauterine devices (IUDs) are the most-used reversible contraceptive method for women in the world, but little is known about their potential modulation of brain function, cognition, and behavior. This is disconcerting because research on other hormonal contraceptives, especially oral contraceptives (OCs), increasingly shows that exogenous sex hormones have behavioral neuroendocrine consequences, especially for gendered cognition, including spatial skills. Effects are small and nuanced, however, partially reflecting heterogeneity. The goal of this paper is to introduce IUD use as a new frontier for basic and applied research, and to offer key considerations for studying it, emphasizing the importance of multimodal investigations and person-specific analyses. The feasibility and utility of studying IUD users is illustrated by: scanning women who completed a functional magnetic resonance imaging mental rotations task; taking an individualized approach to mapping functional connectivity during the task using network analyses containing connections common across participants and unique to individual women, focusing on brain regions in putative mental rotations and default mode networks; and linking metrics of brain connectivity from the individualized networks to both mental rotations task performance and circulating hormone levels. IUD users provide a promising natural experiment for the interplay between exogenous and endogenous sex hormones, and they are likely qualitatively different from OC users with whom they are often grouped in hormonal contraceptive research. This paper underscores how future research on IUD users can advance basic neuroendocrinological knowledge and women's health.

From Lab to Zoom: Adapting Training Study Methodologies to Remote Conditions

Training studies extend developmental research beyond single-session lab tasks by evaluating how particular experiences influence developmental changes over time. This methodology is highly interactive and typically requires experimenters to have easy, in-person access to large groups of children. When constraints were placed on in-person data collection due to the COVID-19 pandemic, administering this study format in the conventional manner became unfeasible. To implement this type of research under these new circumstances, we devised an alternative approach that enabled us to conduct a live, multi-session training study using a diverse array of activities through an online interface, a task necessitating creative problem solving, since most existing remote methodologies either rely on unsupervised methods or have been limited to single sessions and restricted to a limited number of tasks. The current paper describes the technological and practical adaptations implemented in our online training study of 118 4- and 5-year-old children from a geographically diverse sample. An experimenter interacted with the children once a week for 5 weeks over Zoom. The first and final sessions were dedicated to collecting baseline and post-test measures, while the intermediate 3 weeks were structured as a training designed to teach children specific spatial-cognitive and visuo-motor integration skills. The assessments and training contained image-filled spatial tasks that experimenters shared on their screen, a series of hands-on activities that children completed on their own device and on paper while following experimenters’ on-screen demonstrations, and tasks requiring verbal indicators from the parent about their child’s response. The remote nature of the study presented a unique set of benefits and limitations that has the potential to inform future virtual child research, as our study used remote behavioral methods to test spatial and visuo-motor integration skills that have typically only been assessed in lab settings. Results are discussed in relation to in-lab studies to establish the viability of testing these skills virtually. As our design entailed continual management of communication issues among researchers, parents, and child participants, strategies for streamlined researcher training, diverse online recruitment, and stimuli creation are also discussed.

The developmental trajectories of spatial skills in middle childhood

The multidimensional structure of spatial ability remains a debated issue. However, the developmental trajectories of spatial skills have yet to be investigated as a source of evidence within this debate. We tested the intrinsic versus extrinsic and static versus dynamic dimensions of the Uttal et al. (2013, Psychol. Bull., 139, 352) typology in relation to spatial development. Participants (N = 184) aged 6–11 completed spatial tasks chosen to measure these spatial dimensions. The results indicated that the developmental trajectories of intrinsic versus extrinsic skills differed significantly. Intrinsic skills improved more between 6 and 8 years, and 7 and 8 years, than extrinsic skills. Extrinsic skills increased more between 8 and 10 years than intrinsic skills. The trajectories of static versus dynamic skills did not differ significantly. The findings support the intrinsic versus extrinsic, but not the static versus dynamic dimension, of the Uttal et al. (2013, Psychol. Bull., 139, 352) typology.

Does spatial awareness training affect anatomy learning in medical students?

Spatial ability (SA) is the cognitive capacity to understand and mentally manipulate concepts of objects, remembering relationships among their parts and those of their surroundings. Spatial ability provides a learning advantage in science and may be useful in anatomy and technical skills in health care. This study aimed to assess the relationship between SA and anatomy scores in first- and second-year medical students. The training sessions focused on the analysis of the spatial component of objects' structure and their interaction as applied to medicine; SA was tested using the Visualization of Rotation (ROT) test. The intervention group (n = 29) received training and their pre- and post-training scores for the SA tests were compared to a control group (n = 75). Both groups improved their mean scores in the follow-up SA test (P < 0.010). There was no significant difference in SA scores between the groups for either SA test (P = 0.31, P = 0.90). The SA scores for female students were significantly lower than for male students, both at baseline and follow-up (P < 0.010). Anatomy training and assessment were administered by the anatomy department of the medical school, and examination scores were not significantly different between the two groups post-intervention (P = 0.33). However, participants with scores in the bottom quartile for SA performed worse in the anatomy questions (P < 0.001). Spatial awareness training did not improve SA or anatomy scores; however, SA may identify students who may benefit from additional academic support.

Does spatial awareness training affect anatomy learning in medical students?

Spatial ability (SA) is the cognitive capacity to understand and mentally manipulate concepts of objects, remembering relationships among their parts and those of their surroundings. Spatial ability provides a learning advantage in science and may be useful in anatomy and technical skills in health care. This study aimed to assess the relationship between SA and anatomy scores in first- and second-year medical students. The training sessions focused on the analysis of the spatial component of objects' structure and their interaction as applied to medicine; SA was tested using the Visualization of Rotation (ROT) test. The intervention group (n = 29) received training and their pre- and post-training scores for the SA tests were compared to a control group (n = 75). Both groups improved their mean scores in the follow-up SA test (P < 0.010). There was no significant difference in SA scores between the groups for either SA test (P = 0.31, P = 0.90). The SA scores for female students were significantly lower than for male students, both at baseline and follow-up (P < 0.010). Anatomy training and assessment were administered by the anatomy department of the medical school, and examination scores were not significantly different between the two groups post-intervention (P = 0.33). However, participants with scores in the bottom quartile for SA performed worse in the anatomy questions (P < 0.001). Spatial awareness training did not improve SA or anatomy scores; however, SA may identify students who may benefit from additional academic support.

Capturing Fluctuations in Gendered Cognition With Novel Intensive Longitudinal Measures

Cognition is often assumed to be stable, but compelling evidence shows that some skills (e.g., working memory) vary. There is limited investigation, however, of variation in gendered cognition, such as spatial skills and verbal recall, potentially because there are no validated measures for intensive longitudinal assessment. The goal of this study was to introduce and validate new 75-occasion measures of three-dimensional mental rotations and delayed paired verbal recall. This was accomplished by studying cognitive fluctuations over 75 days in an intensive longitudinal study of 121 participants, focusing on 54 (27 women) who were matched for gender, age, and language. Results from psychometric analyses suggest that both measures show parallel forms reliability, including expected gender differences, and validity (i.e., performance with respect to a standard measure or item difficulty), although results are more consistent for mental rotations than verbal recall. Results also suggest there are significant daily fluctuations in both mental rotations and verbal recall. Findings encourage future clinical work on the antecedents and consequences of cognitive fluctuations with the newly developed, freely available measures.

Is Early Spatial Skills Training Effective? A Meta-Analysis

Spatial skills significantly predict educational and occupational achievements in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). As early interventions for young children are usually more effective than interventions that come later in life, the present meta-analysis systematically included 20 spatial intervention studies (2009–2020) with children aged 0–8 years to provide an up-to-date account of the malleability of spatial skills in infancy and early childhood. Our results revealed that the average effect size (Hedges's g) for training relative to control was 0.96 (SE = 0.10) using random effects analysis. We analyzed the effects of several moderators, including the type of study design, sex, age, outcome category (i.e., type of spatial skills), research setting (e.g., lab vs. classroom), and type of training. Study design, sex, and outcome category were found to moderate the training effects. The results suggest that diverse training strategies or programs including hands-on exploration, visual prompts, and gestural spatial training significantly foster young children's spatial skills. Implications for research, policy, and practice are also discussed.

Examining the Factor Structure of the Home Mathematics Environment to Delineate Its Role in Predicting Preschool Numeracy, Mathematical Language, and Spatial Skills

A growing body of evidence suggests that the ways in which parents and preschool children interact in terms of home-based mathematics activities (i.e., the home mathematics environment; HME) is related to children's mathematics development (e.g., primarily numeracy skills and spatial skills); however, this body of evidence is mixed with some research supporting the relation and others finding null effects. Importantly, few studies have explicitly examined the factor structure of the HME and contrasted multiple hypothesized models. To develop more precise models of how the HME supports children's mathematics development, the structure of the HME needs to be examined and linked to mathematics performance. The purpose of this study was to extend prior work by replicating the factor structure of the HME (as one general HME factor and three specific factors of direct numeracy, indirect numeracy, and spatial) and using those factors to predict direct assessments of children's numeracy, mathematical language, and spatial skills. It was hypothesized that the general HME factor would be related to each direct assessment, the direct numeracy factor would be related to both numeracy and mathematical language, and the spatial factor would be related to spatial skills. Using a sample of 129 preschool children (M age = 4.71 years, SD = 0.55; 46.5% female), a series of confirmatory factor analyses were conducted. Results diverged somewhat from prior work as the best fitting model was a bifactor model with a general HME factor and two specific factors (one that combined direct and indirect numeracy activities and another of spatial activities) rather than three specific factors as had previously been found. Further, structural equation modeling analyses suggested that, in contrast to expectations, only the direct + indirect numeracy factor was a significant predictor of direct child assessments when accounting for age, sex, and parental education. These findings provide evidence that a bifactor model is important in understanding the structure of the HME, but only one specific factor is related to children's outcomes. Delineating the structure of the HME, and how specific facets of the HME relate to children's mathematics skills, provides a strong foundation for understanding and enhancing the mechanisms that support mathematics development.

Associations of 3-year-olds' block-building complexity with later spatial and mathematical skills

Block-building skills at age 3 are related to spatial skills at age 5 and spatial skills in grade school are linked to later success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields (Wai, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2009; Wai, Lubinski, Benbow, & Steiger, 2010). Though studies have focused on block-building behaviors and design complexity, few have examined these variables in relation to future spatial and mathematical skills or have considered how children go about copying the model in detail. This study coded 3-year-olds' (N = 102) block-building behaviors and structural complexity on 3-D trials of the Test of Spatial Assembly (TOSA; Verdine, Golinkoff, Hirsh-Pasek, & Newcombe, 2017). It explored whether individual differences in children's building behaviors and the complexity of their designs related to accuracy in copying the model block structures or their spatial and mathematical skills at ages 4 and 5. Our findings reveal that block-building behaviors were associated with concurrent and later spatial skills while structural complexity was associated with concurrent and later spatial skills as well as concurrent mathematics skills. Future work might teach children to engage in the apparently successful block-building strategies examined in this research to evaluate a potential causal mechanism.

Children's Block-Building Skills and Mother-Child Block-Building Interactions Across Four U.S. Ethnic Groups

Play offers an unparalleled opportunity for young children to gain cognitive skills in informal settings. Block play in particular—including interactions with parents around block constructions—teaches children about intrinsic spatial features of objects (size, shape) and extrinsic spatial relations. In turn, early spatial cognition paves the way for later competencies in math and science. We assessed 4- and 5-year-old children’s spatial skill on a set of block-building constructions and examined mother-child block building interactions in 167 U.S. dyads from African American, Dominican, Mexican, and Chinese backgrounds. At both ages, children were instructed to copy several 3D block constructions, followed by a “break” during which mothers and children were left alone with the blocks. A form that contained pictures of test items was left on the table. Video-recordings of mother-child interactions during the break were coded for two types of building behaviors – test-specific construction (building structures on the test form) or free-form construction (building structures not on the test form). Chinese children outperformed Mexican, African American, and Dominican children on the block-building assessment. Further, Chinese and Mexican mother-child dyads spent more time building test-specific constructions than did African American and Dominican dyads. At an individual level, mothers’ time spent building test-specific constructions at the 4-year (but not 5-year) assessment, but not mothers’ initiation of block building interactions or verbal instructions, related to children’s performance, when controlling for ethnicity. Ethnic differences in children’s block-building performance and experiences emerge prior to formal schooling and provide a valuable window into sources of individual differences in early spatial cognition.

From What Age Is Mental Rotation Training Effective? Differences in Preschool Age but Not in Sex

Currently, there is evidence that spatial skills training leads to an improvement of such skills, although studies with children in the Preschool stage are very scarce. This paper aims to examine the effectiveness of mental rotation (MR) training and sex differences in preschool children. Two experiments were carried out. Experiment 1 included 59 children of 1st course (aged between 3 and 4 years) and Experiment 2, 61 children of 2nd course (aged between 4 and 5 years) of Preschool Education, distributed into control and training groups. The results showed a significant improvement in the MR ability of the training group (measured through a different test than the one used for training) only in the older children, and a tendency toward significance in the younger participants. Moreover, no sex differences in MR or group differences across age groups were found. These results regarding MR training support the malleability of spatial skills approach, particularly in 4–5 year-old preschoolers. This malleability should be enhanced in our educational system, as well as the implementation of educational and social policies that tend toward equality between sexes in the development of spatial skills. This can promote an equitable access to academic careers requiring high spatial skills such as engineering, science, technology or mathematics, in which nowadays women are underrepresented.

Mental rotation and the human body: Children's inflexible use of embodiment mirrors that of adults

Adults' mental rotation performance with body-like stimuli is enhanced if these stimuli are anatomically compatible with a human body, but decreased by anatomically incompatible stimuli. In this study, we investigated these effects for kindergartners and first-graders: When asked to mentally rotate cube configurations attached with human body parts in an anatomically compatible way, allowing for the projection of a human body, children performed better than with pure cube combinations. By contrast, when body parts were attached in an anatomically incompatible way, disallowing the projection of a human body, children performed worse than with pure combinations. This experiment is of specific interest against the background of two different theoretical approaches concerning imagery and the motor system in development: One approach assumes an increasing integration of motor processes and imagery over time that enables older children and adults to requisition motor resources for imagery processes, while the other postulates that imagery stems from early sensorimotor processes in the first place, and is disentangled from it over time. The finding that children of the two age groups tested show exactly the same effects as adults when mentally rotating anatomically compatible and incompatible stimuli is interpreted in favour of the latter approach. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? In mental rotation, adults perform better when rotating anatomically possible stimuli as compared to rotating standard cube combinations. Performance is worse when rotating anatomically impossible stimuli. What does this study add? The present study shows that children's mental transformations mirror those of adults in these respects. In case of the anatomically impossible stimuli, this highlights an inflexible use of embodiment in both age groups. This is in line with the Piagetian assumption of imagery being based on sensorimotor processes.

Teacher spatial skills are linked to differences in geometry instruction

BACKGROUND

Spatial skills have been linked to better performance in mathematics.

AIM

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between teacher spatial skills and their instruction, including teacher content and pedagogical knowledge, use of pictorial representations, and use of gestures during geometry instruction.

SAMPLE

Fifty-six middle school teachers participated in the study.

METHODS

The teachers were administered spatial measures of mental rotations and spatial visualization. Next, a single geometry class was videotaped.

RESULT

Correlational analyses revealed that spatial skills significantly correlate with teacher's use of representational gestures and content and pedagogical knowledge during instruction of geometry. Spatial skills did not independently correlate with the use of pointing gestures or the use of pictorial representations. However, an interaction term between spatial skills and content and pedagogical knowledge did correlate significantly with the use of pictorial representations. Teacher experience as measured by the number of years of teaching and highest degree did not appear to affect the relationships among the variables with the exception of the relationship between spatial skills and teacher content and pedagogical knowledge.

CONCLUSION

Teachers with better spatial skills are also likely to use representational gestures and to show better content and pedagogical knowledge during instruction. Spatial skills predict pictorial representation use only as a function of content and pedagogical knowledge.

Motherless quail mothers display impaired maternal behavior and produce more fearful and less socially motivated offspring

Early maternal deprivation impairs the behavioral development of young individuals. Recently, strong differences between mothered and maternally deprived chicks have been reported concerning their emotionality, sociality, and spatial skills. Here we investigated long-term and cross-generational impacts of maternal deprivation by comparing the characteristics of the non-reproductive and the maternal behavior of 22 mothered and 22 non-mothered adult female Japanese quail (Coturnix c. japonica) and by comparing the behavior of their respective fostered chicks. We reveal that non-brooded mothers were more fearful and less competent in spatial tasks and expressed impaired maternal care, characterized by more aggression towards chicks, higher activity rates, and more abnormal pacing during the first days of the care period. Chicks' behavior was clearly affected by maternal care inducing strong differences in their fearfulness and social motivation. Our results show both long-term and cross-generational impacts of early maternal deprivation in precocial birds.