Mental Images and School Learning: A Longitudinal Study on Children

Abstract

Recent literature have underlined the connections between children’s reading skills and capacity to create and use mental representations or mental images; furthermore data highlighted the involvement of visuospatial abilities both during math learning and during subsequent developmental phases in performing math tasks. The present research adopted a longitudinal design to assess whether the processes of mental imagery in preschoolers (ages 4–5 years) are predictive of mathematics skills, writing and reading, in the early years of primary school (ages 6–7 years). The research lasted for two school years; in the first phase, the general group of participants consisted of 100 children, and although all participants agreed to be part of the research, in the second phase, there was a mortality rate of 30%. In order to measure school learning and mental imagery processes four batteries of tests were used. The mental imagery battery evaluated mental generation, inspection and transformation processes. Data underlined that the different aspects in which mental imagery processes are articulated are differently implied in some skills that constitute school learning. These findings emphasize the potential usefulness of a screening for mental imagery ability for schoolchildren to adopt effective measures to increase their mental imagery abilities.

Temperament and School Readiness – A Literature Review

“…Temperament is considered a predictor of functional attention influenced by individual differences in reactivity and self-regulation in emotion and activity ( Rothbart et al, 2006 ; similarly, Guarnera et al, 2019 ). Outside the topic of research, but as a critical problem area, there appears the relationship of temperament (especially its projection into the attention) and learning difficulties and the connection with the possibility of special intervention ( Commodari, 2012 ).…”

Mental Imagery Skills in Competitive Young Athletes and Non-athletes

“…This age range has been selected as it is recommended that children aged 7 and over can form kinesthetic and transformational images (Piaget and Inhelder, 1971). In fact, although in disagreement with Piaget's theory, much research has demonstrated that under certain conditions, children younger than 7 years of age can transform visual mental images (Quaiser-Pohl et al, 2010;Guarnera et al, 2017Guarnera et al, , 2019. There is general agreement that children over 7 years of age improve their imagery ability, as they move from perceptual to conceptual activity (Munroe-Chandler et al, 2007b).…”

Examining the Effectiveness and Efficiency of an Innovative Achievement Goal Measurement for Preschoolers

“…There were four mental imagery processes: generation, maintenance, inspection, and transformation. Preschoolers were enabled to maintain the images, which were used in this study as pictorial measurement, in their short-term memory, and to scan images and to activate the images or information about themselves in long-term memory for checking their similarity (Guarnera et al, 2017(Guarnera et al, , 2019. There may be at least three mental imagery process involving in the measurement process.…”