Abstract
Previous studies have found that block play, board games, and puzzles result in better spatial ability. This study focused on examining the differential impact of structured block play and board games on spatial processing. Two groups of 8-year-old children were studied. One group participated in a five session block play training paradigm and the second group had a similar training protocol but played a word/spelling board game. A mental rotation task was assessed before and after training. The mental rotation task was performed during fMRI to observe the neural changes associated with the two play protocols. Only the block play group showed effects of training for both behavioral measures and fMRI measured brain activation. Behaviorally, the block play group showed improvements in both reaction time and accuracy. Additionally, the block play group showed increased involvement of regions that have been linked to spatial working memory and spatial processing after training. The board game group showed non-significant improvements in mental rotation performance, likely related to practice effects, and no training related brain activation differences. While the current study is preliminary, it does suggest that different “spatial” play activities have differential impacts on spatial processing with structured block play but not board games showing a significant impact on mental rotation performance.
Highlights
Play is an important way that young children learn (Singer et al, 2006)
While studies seem to suggest a relationship between games like block building, board games, and puzzles to spatial processing, there are few studies that have explored the differential impact of these spatial games on spatial processing
None of the interactions were found to be significant, because our a priori hypothesis was that the block play group would show an effect of training but not the board game group and because there was a trend of an interaction between group and training for RT
Summary
Play is an important way that young children learn (Singer et al, 2006). Playing with spatial toys and engaging in spatial activities may prove to be an essential part of the development of spatial thinking. There are a number of studies that have related spatial play with spatial skill (Levine et al, 2012; Jirout and Newcombe, 2015) and number processing (Cheng and Mix, 2014; Verdine et al, 2014; Casey et al, 2015). There it was found that those who frequently participated in block play, puzzles, and board games had higher spatial ability than those who participated more in other activities like drawing, playing with sound-producing toys, trucks, and riding bikes. While studies seem to suggest a relationship between games like block building, board games, and puzzles to spatial processing, there are few studies that have explored the differential impact of these spatial games on spatial processing. One of the very few studies directly comparing spatial games examined their impact on mathematics. Cheng and Mix (2014) examined the effect of two types of spatial training
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