Encouraging Spatial Talk: Using Children's Museums to Bolster Spatial Reasoning

Polinsky, Naomi; Perez, Jasmin; Grehl, Mora; McCrink, Koleen

doi:10.1111/mbe.12145

Cited by 46 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Children’s spatial word production (e.g., “left/right”, “by/next”, “middle”) predicts performance on tasks involving those spatial relations (Hermer-Vazquez et al, 2001; Miller et al, 2016; Simms & Gentner, 2008). Similarly, children who hear more spatial words from their caregivers in unstructured play (Pruden et al, 2011) or in museum-based interactions (Polinsky, Perez, Grehl, & McCrink, 2017) tend to produce more spatial words themselves, and perform better on spatial tasks. Based on these findings, theorists proposed that, as children acquire or gain experience using spatial words, they become better at using language to encode relevant spatial features, enhancing their spatial performance (e.g., Pruden et al, 2011).…”

Section: Investigations Of Language Effects On Spatial Skillsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children’s attention to task-relevant information accounts for relations between language and spatial cognition

Miller

Simmering

2018

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

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Children's spatial language reliably predicts their spatial skills, but the nature of this relation is a source of debate. This investigation examined whether the mechanisms accounting for such relations are specific to language use or reflect a domain-general mechanism of selective attention. Experiment 1 examined whether 4-year-olds' spatial skills were predicted by their selective attention or their adaptive language use. Children completed (a) an attention task assessing attention to task-relevant color, size, and location cues; (b) a description task assessing adaptive language use to describe scenes varying in color, size, and location; and (c) three spatial tasks. There was correspondence between the cue types that children attended to and produced across description and attention tasks. Adaptive language use was predicted by both children's attention and task-related language production, suggesting that selective attention underlies skills in using language adaptively. After controlling for age, gender, receptive vocabulary, and adaptive language use, spatial skills were predicted by children's selective attention. The attention score predicted variance in spatial performance previously accounted for by adaptive language use. Experiment 2 followed up on the attention task (Experiment 2a) and description task (Experiment 2b) from Experiment 1 to assess whether performance in the tasks related to selective attention or task-specific demands. Performance in Experiments 2a and 2b paralleled that in Experiment 1, suggesting that the effects in Experiment 1 reflected children's selective attention skills. These findings show that selective attention is a central factor supporting spatial skill development that could account for many effects previously attributed to children's language use.

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Section: Investigations Of Language Effects On Spatial Skillsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children’s attention to task-relevant information accounts for relations between language and spatial cognition

Miller

Simmering

2018

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

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“…Thus, an experiment using random assignment showed how children's shape learning could be enhanced. More recently, a brief intervention randomly assigning parents visiting a children's museum showed that instructing parents to talk about shapes, rather than about another topic, speeded the children's subsequent puzzle completion (Polinsky et al, 2017).…”

Section: Preschool Childrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Harnessing Spatial Thinking to Support Stem Learning

Newcombe

2017

OECD Education Working Papers

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HARNESSING SPATIAL THINKING TO SUPPORT STEM LEARNING Unclassified OECD EDUCATION WORKING PAPERS SERIES OECD Working Papers should not be reported as representing the official views of the OECD or of its member countries. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein are those of the author(s). Working Papers describe preliminary results or research in progress by the author(s) and are published to stimulate discussion on a broad range of issues on which the OECD works. Comments on Working Papers are welcome, and may be sent to the Directorate for Education and Skills, OECD,

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“…For example, parents of 5-year-olds who discussed spatial relationships between images that portrayed different viewpoints of the same scene had children with better spatial skills (Szechter & Liben, 2004). The importance of spatial language use has also been documented in a museum setting (Polinsky, Perez, Grehl, & McCrink, 2017), where an experimental manipulation of instruction to parents led to the use of more spatial language during a spatial construction task at an exhibit. Improvements in post-test scores on a spatial task were related to the amount of spatial language children used.…”

Section: Language and Early Spatial Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of geometric toy design on parent–child interactions and spatial language

Verdine

Zimmermann

Foster

et al. 2019

Early Childhood Research Quarterly

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Geometric forms have formal definitions. While knowing shape names is considered important for school-readiness, many children do not understand the defining features of shapes until well into elementary school (Satlow & Newcombe, 1998). One reason is likely that they do not encounter enough variety in the shapes they see (citation removed). The present study observed 60 parents and their 3-year-old children during play with geometric toys, exploring how spatial language varied with the nature of the shape-toy set (canonical shapes versus a mix of canonical and unusual or less-canonical variants) and whether geometric shapes were presented as tangible, traditional toys or shown on a touchscreen tablet app. Although children in the app condition heard more shape names than the other conditions due to the language produced by the app itself, children used more overall words and more spatial language with tangible toys that included varied shapes. In addition, parents used more shape names with sons than with daughters and tended to adjust their use of spatial language more in response to varied shape sets with boys, although these findings need replication to evaluate generality. These data suggest that including non-canonical shapes in tangible shape toys may provide a low-cost, high-impact way of refining adult-child interactions that might facilitate children’s early geometric knowledge.

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Encouraging Spatial Talk: Using Children's Museums to Bolster Spatial Reasoning

Cited by 46 publications

References 34 publications

Children’s attention to task-relevant information accounts for relations between language and spatial cognition

Children’s attention to task-relevant information accounts for relations between language and spatial cognition

Harnessing Spatial Thinking to Support Stem Learning

Effects of geometric toy design on parent–child interactions and spatial language

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