We addressed three research gaps related to Mental imagery (MI) in children. First, MI relies on depictive representations in adults, however evidence for a depictive theory of MI in children is lacking. Second, researchers have employed a four sub-component model (Image Generation, Image Maintenance, Mental Rotation, Image Scanning) to investigate the development of MI, however findings are mixed. Finally, shared mechanisms between MI and Visual Working Memory (VWM) are suggested in adult literature, yet this relationship has not been tested directly in children. Using a novel battery of MI tasks, we found evidence for depictive representations in both Experiment 1 (adults: N=58) and Experiment 2 (children age 6-11 years and adults: N=150) in that participants of all ages generated and maintained images of high vividness more often than low vividness. Moreover, we found participants make similar errors when estimating varying distances in both visual perception and mental imagery: participants of all ages underestimated distance, and this increased with increasing distance, thus providing further evidence to support a depictive theory in both children and adults. To address our second and third research questions, we report evidence to broadly support a separable-component model of MI and a dissociation between MI and VWM in both children and adults (Experiment 2). Our findings extend current understanding of development of MI from childhood to adulthood and broadly suggest the structure of MI in childhood mirrors that in adults. Moreover, the findings highlight the importance of considering individual differences in format of representations and strategy use when deciphering the relationship between MI and VWM in both children and adults.

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This document is about how children develop spatial reasoning in early childhood (birth to 7 years) and how practitioners working with young children can support this. Spatial reasoning is a vital and often overlooked aspect of mathematics. So this toolkit, which is informed by extensive review of research in this areas, will support practitioners to enhance children's early mathematical learning. For the full Spatial Reasoning toolkit: https://earlymaths.org/spatial-reasoning/

Background: There is a growing evidence base for the importance of spatial reasoning for the development of mathematics. However, the extent to which this translates into practice is unknown. Aims: We aimed to understand practitioners' perspectives on their understanding of spatial reasoning, the extent to which they recognize and implement spatial activities in their practice, and the barriers and opportunities to support spatial reasoning in the practice setting. Sample: Study 1 (questionnaire) included 94 participants and Study 2 (focus groups) consisted of nine participants. Participants were educational practitioners working with children from birth to 7 years. Methods: The study was mixed methods and included a questionnaire (Study 1) and a series of focus groups (Study 2). Results: We found that whilst practitioners engage in a variety of activities that support spatial reasoning, most practitioners reported little confidence in their understanding of what spatial reasoning is. Conclusion: Informative and accessible resources are needed to broaden understanding of the definition of spatial reasoning and to outline opportunities to support spatial reasoning.

Evidence for associations between spatial skills and mathematics has led to the argument that spatial visualization plays a role in mathematical calculation. However, there is no single accepted definition of what spatial visualization encompasses. Here, we investigated spatial visualization in the context of a mental imagery framework. We applied a component model of mental imagery, involving image generation, image maintenance, image transformation (measured using mental rotation), and image scanning, to determine associations between each component and mathematical calculation ability in primary school children (N = 92, age 6-11 years). We found that, after accounting for age, only mental rotation explained significant variation in mathematical calculation. Our findings advance theoretical understanding by demonstrating that spatial visualization definitions, applied to mathematics, should be refined to focus on transformation. This highlights the practical implication that transformation strategies are promising targets for future intervention work, rather than broad visualization strategies. Spatial Thinking and MathematicsTasks used to capture spatial visualization ability involve spatial transformations of mental representations, for example, mental rotation or mental paper folding (Hawes & Ansari, 2020). However, definitions of spatial visualization sometimes include a reference to visual representations, as well