Individual differences in spatial skill emerge prior to kindergarten entry. However, little is known about the early experiences that may contribute to these differences. The current study examines the relation between children’s early puzzle play and their spatial skill. Children and parents (n = 53) were observed at home for 90 minutes every four months (six times) between 2 and 4 years of age (26 to 46 months). When children were 4 years 6 months old, they completed a spatial task involving mental transformations of 2D shapes. Children who were observed playing with puzzles performed better on this task than those who did not, controlling for parent education, income, and overall parent word types. Moreover, among those children who played with puzzles, frequency of puzzle play predicted performance on the spatial transformation task. Although the frequency of puzzle play did not differ for boys and girls, the quality of puzzle play (a composite of puzzle difficulty, parent engagement, and parent spatial language) was higher for boys than girls. In addition, variation in puzzle play quality predicted performance on the spatial transformation task for girls but not boys. Implications of these findings as well as future directions for research on the role of the role of puzzle play in the development of spatial skill are discussed.

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The existence of a sex difference in spatial thinking, notably on tasks involving mental rotation, has been a topic of considerable research and debate. We review this literature, with a particular focus on the development of this sex difference, and consider four key questions: (1) When does the sex difference emerge developmentally and does the magnitude of this difference change across development? (2) What are the biological and environmental factors that contribute to sex differences in spatial skill and how might they interact? (3) How malleable are spatial skills, and is the sex difference reduced as a result of training? and (4) Does 'spatializing' the curriculum raise the level of spatial thinking in all students and hold promise for increasing and diversifying the STEM pipeline? Throughout the review, we consider promising avenues for future research.

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Proponents of a geometric module have argued that instances of young children's use of features as well as geometry to reorient can be explained by a two-stage process. In this model, only the first stage is a true reorientation, accomplished by using geometric information alone; features are considered in a second stage using association (Lee, Shusterman & Spelke, 2006). This account is contradicted by the data from two experiments. Experiment 1a sets the stage for Experiment 1b by showing that young children use geometric information to reorient in a complex geometric figure without a single principal axis of symmetry (an octagon). In such a figure, there are two sets of geometrically congruent corners, with four corners in each set. The addition of a colored wall leads to the existence of three geometrically congruent but, crucially, all unmarked corners; using the colored wall to distinguish among them could not be done associatively. In Experiment 1b, both 3- and 5-year-old children showed true non-associative reorientation using features by performing at above-chance levels on all-white trials. Experiment 2 used a paradigm without distinctive geometry, modeled on Lee et al. (2006), involving an equilateral triangle of hiding places located within a circular enclosure, but with a large stable feature rather than a small moveable one. Four-year-olds (the age group studied by Lee et al.) used features at above-chance levels. Thus, features can be used to reorient, in a way not dependent on association, in contradiction to the two-stage version of the modular view.