Fine motor skills during early childhood predict visuospatial deductive reasoning in adolescence.

Abstract

Extensive evidence and theory suggest that the development of motor skills during infancy and early childhood initiates a “developmental cascade” for cognitive abilities, such as reading and math. Motor skills are closely connected with the development of spatial cognition, an ability that supports deductive reasoning. Despite the linkage between motor skills and spatial cognition, and spatial cognition with deductive reasoning, no research has explored the developmental connection between early motor skills and reasoning ability, a plausible pathway through which the developmental cascade operates. Drawing data from the 1970 British Cohort Study (N = 1,233; 95% British, 5% other race/ethnicity; 54% male, 46% female; 7% low income, 80% middle income, 12% high income), this study investigated whether there was a relationship between gross and fine motor skills in infancy (22 months of age) and early childhood (42 months of age) and visuospatial deductive reasoning in adolescence (at 10 and 16 years of age). Results indicated that fine but not gross motor skills during early childhood positively predicted reasoning in adolescence. Critically, the fine motor-reasoning association mediated the previously observed link between early fine motor skills and adolescent reading and math ability. These results deepen our understanding of developmental cascade theory and mental model theory by identifying visuospatial reasoning (i.e., mental modeling) as a potential mechanism through which motor skills initiate cognitive development and academic success in reading and math. These findings also highlight the importance of early intervention programs targeting motor skills and illuminate the impact of those interventions on later cognitive and academic skills.

Inquiry-Based Approach and Achievement in Mathematics Pro-cess Skills among Pre-School Children in Kajiado North Sub-County, Kajiado County, Kenya

“…Evidence based on cognitive and developmental theories suggests that early math skills are linked to future academic achievement (Cortes, Green, Barr, & Ryan, 2022;Karademir, &Akman, 2019;Dilek, Taşdemir, Konca, & Baltacı, 2020). Research further supports the position that early years are vital for developing math knowledge and skills (Ramanathan, Carter, & Wenner, 2022;Litkowski, Duncan, Logan, and Purpura, 2021;Trawick-Smith, Swaminathan, & Liu, 2016).…”

Effect on Perceived Weight of Object Shapes

“…Further, previous studies [ 19 , 22 , 23 ] showed the importance of human perception, including the weight and size of objects, as a diagnostic and monitoring tool for various health problems. This applies to violations of motor functions, cognitive, and coordination abilities of patients with neurological disorders and diseases (damages) of brain functions.…”

“…Previous research and medical experience show that after a stroke, an attack of Parkinson’s disease, as well as during the early development of children, including children with Down’s syndrome and cerebral palsy, the development and restoration of the body’s motor functions play a special role [ 18 ]. Motor functions are closely related to brain functions and one of the most effective medical approaches for the development and restoration of brain function is the performance of tasks related to fine motor skills in children and adults [ 19 , 20 ]. Fine motor skills tasks include drawing, writing, playing with small objects, and solving three-dimensional puzzles with different geometric shapes, such as sphere, cylinder, tetrahedron, and cube, in various weights, depending on the patient age and health issues.…”

Scene construction and autobiographical memory retrieval in autism spectrum disorder

“…In preverbal children, the development of motor skills is closely connected with the development of spatial cognition (Cortes et al, 2022; Dilks et al, 2022; Newcome, 2019; Vasileyva & Lourenco, 2012), and appears promising as an early life candidate of study. Of relevance here, impaired motor learning has been proposed as a core symptom of ASD (see Bo et al, 2016), and the question therefore becomes how well motor learning impairments may predict scene construction in ASD.…”