Gesture as a mechanism of change in the interface between spatial language and cognitive development

The embodied-cognition approach views cognition and language as grounded in daily sensorimotor child-environment interactions. Therefore, the attainment of motor milestones is expected to play a role in cognitive-linguistic development. Early attainment of unsupported sitting and independent walking indeed predict better spatial cognition and language at later ages. However, evidence linking these milestones with the development of spatial language and evidence regarding factors that might mediate this relation are scarce. The current study examined whether exploration of spatial-relational object properties (e.g., the possibility of containing or stacking) and exploration of the space through self-locomotion mediate the effect of, respectively, age of sitting and age of walking on spatial cognition and spatial language. Thus, we hypothesized that an earlier age of sitting and walking predicts, respectively, higher levels of spatial-relational object exploration and exploration through self-locomotion, which in turn, predict better spatial cognition and spatial language at later ages. Fifty-nine Dutch children took part in a longitudinal study. A combination of tests, observations, and parental reports was used to measure motor development, exploratory behavior (age 20 months), spatial memory (age 24 months), spatial processing (age 32 months), and spatial language (age 36 months). Results show that attainment of sitting predicted spatial memory and spatial language, but spatial-relational object exploration did not mediate these effects. Attainment of independent walking predicted spatial processing and spatial language, and exploration through self-locomotion (partially) mediated these relations. These findings extend previous work and provide partial support for the hypotheses about the mediating role of exploration.

PART I. REMEMBERING WHERE THINGS ARE 1. Using Spatial Categories to Reason About Location 2. Organism-Environment Interaction in Spatial Development: Explaining Categorical Bias in Memory for Location 3. Explaining the Development of Spatial Reorientation: Modularity-Plus-Language versus the Emergence of Adaptive Combination 4. Using Locomotion to Update Spatial Orientation: What Changes with Learning and Development? 5. Commentary: The Nature and Development of Spatial Reference Systems PART II. THINKING AND TALKING ABOUT SPATIAL RELATIONS 6. On the Infant's Prelinguistic Conception of Spatial Relations: Three Developmental Trends and Their Implications for Spatial Language Learning 7. Adapting Spatial Concepts for Different Languages: From Preverbal Event Schemas to Semantic Categories 8. The Body and Children's Word Learning 9. Developmental Changes in Children's Understanding of Maps: What, When, and How? 10. Map Use and the Development of Spatial Cognition 11. Commentary: Linking Internal Representations to the External WOrld via Spatial Relations 12. Effects of Blindness and Deafness on the Development of Spatial Perception and Cognition 13. Explaining Selective Spatial Breakdown in Williams Syndrome: Four Principles of Normal Spatial Development and Why They Matter 14. What Does Theoretical Neuroscience Have to Offer the Study of Behavioral Development? Insights from a Dynamic Field Theory of Spatial Cognition 15. Commentary: Specificity, Mechanisms, and Timing in the Study of Spatial Cognition PART IV. CONCLUSIONS 16. What Makes Thinking about Development So Hard?

This study composed spatial cognition tasks within the system of geometric area to study children’s spatial cognition development systematically. It surveyed children’s execution of direction, rotation, symmetry, conjugation, and part/whole cognition tasks. A spatial geometry cognition task set (consisting of total 27 sub-tasks) was presented to 60 children (20 each in groups of 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old) in order to confirm how children’s execution of spatial geometry cognition changed depending on children’s age and sex as well as if the execution of the spatial geometry cognition showed a difference after each task area. As a result, the execution of the whole direction task and the part/whole task gradually increased between age 3 and age 5. The execution of the whole rotation task, whole symmetry task, and whole conjugation task rapidly increased between age 3 and age 4. Significant sexual difference did not appear in the execution of spatial geometry cognition tasks. The execution of the conjugation and part/whole task was high in each task area, and the execution of the direction, rotation, and symmetry task was relatively low. In addition, the difference of task execution appeared in the sub-tasks of direction, symmetry, and conjugation areas. This result suggests the theoretical discussion possibility of children’s spatial geometry cognition development. In addition, the empirical results of this study can be applied to child education plans and activity compositions appropriate for child development. Keywords: spatial geometry cognition, direction, rotation, symmetry

This paper considers the relation between the development of spatial cognition and children’s use of maps and models. A new theoretical perspective is presented that takes into account the influences of maps on the development of spatial cognition. Maps provide a perspective on spatial information that differs in important ways from the perspective gained from direct experience navigating in the world. Using and thinking about maps may help children to acquire abstract concepts of space and the ability to think systematically about spatial relations that they have not experienced directly. In addition, exposure to maps may help children to think about multiple spatial relations among multiple locations. The results of previous studies that have demonstrated developmental differences in children’s cognition of large‐scale environments are examined from this theoretical perspective. This review suggests that the development of spatial cognition consists partly of the acquisition of models of large‐scale space, and that maps influence the development of the modern Western model.

Various lifestyle factors, including diet, physical activity, and sleep, have been studied in the context of children’s health. However, how these lifestyle factors contribute to the development of cognitive abilities, including spatial cognition, remains vastly understudied. One landmark in spatial cognitive development occurs between 2.5 and 3 years of age. For spatial orientation at that age, children learn to use allocentric reference frames (using spatial relations between objects as the primary reference frame) in addition to, the already acquired, egocentric reference frames (using one’s own body as the primary reference frame). In the current virtual reality study in a sample of 30–36-month-old toddlers (N = 57), we first demonstrated a marginally significant developmental shift in spatial orientation. Specifically, task performance with allocentric performance increased relative to egocentric performance (ηp2 = 0.06). Next, we explored a variety of lifestyle factors, including diet, in relation to task performance, to explain individual differences. Screen time and gestational weight gain of the mother were negatively associated with spatial task performance. The findings presented here can be used to guide future confirmatory studies about the role of lifestyle factors in the development of spatial cognition.

This paper describes a study carried out at Varanasi on the development of geocentric spatial cognition with 4–14 year old children of Hindi and Sanskrit medium schools. A number of tasks and procedures were used to assess the spatial frames of reference children used in describing and interpreting spatial displays. Analysis revealed that Sanskrit medium school children used more geocentric language and encoding than Hindi medium school children. The effect of age was significant only for encoding, not for language. Geocentric spatial cognition was significantly linked to fundamental spatial cognitive ability, as measured by Story-Pictorial Embedded Figures Test and Block Designs Test. The stronger expression of geocentric language and geocentric encoding in Sanskrit than Hindi medium school children suggests that the use of the ability can be sharpened by its practice and actualization in day-to-day life. The relationship between language and encoding was found to be of a moderate level suggesting that geocentric cognition is not determined by language alone, but also by other factors present in children’s eco-cultural contexts.

Spatial Cognition during Infancy and Early Childhood Across Cultures, Development of

Spatial Cognition and Language Development

Recent studies show that young children with type-2 spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) can succeed in spatial search tasks. Such results suggest that locomotor impairment may not be a risk factor responsible for a dramatic slowing down or deviation in the development of spatial cognition. The present experiment pursues this question in relation to spatial language to determine whether self-produced locomotion is a necessary prerequisite for the normal acquisition of spatial terms. It compares how two groups of young French children (mean age 33 months) comprehend and produce spatial markers: one group of 12 type-2 SMA children and a control group of 12 healthy children. The results show no significant difference between the two groups with one exception: SMA children displayed a better performance when producing markers for the relations in front of and behind. The performance of SMA children suggests that, despite their total deprivation of experience in locomotion, they have the capacity to acquire and to use rich spatial representations that are embodied in the semantics of natural languages.

The papers in this section are the result of a conference on Landmarks in Spatial Cognition and Spatial Development, held at Arizona State University in February, 1988 and supported by the Graduate College. The conference participants prepared short position papers, which were intended to stimulate discussion about any interesting, unanswered questions, and to help define future directions for research concerning landmarks.

This chapter considers the value of approaching the study of spatial cognition from a developmental perspective. It examines several classic studies in the literature on spatial cognitive development to illustrate the ways in which inappropriate methodologies have led to unjustified conclusions. The chapter argues that investigators often pay insufficient attention to the selection of tasks, dependent measures, and analytic techniques. The definitional and methodological issues are relevant for both developmental and non-developmental approaches to spatial cognition. The contribution of a developmental approach to the study of spatial cognition, however, extends beyond its role in highlighting definitional and methodological troublespots in empirical work. Investigators studying the development of spatial cognition—like the blind men approaching the elephant—are all groping at isolated parts. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the necessity for more careful establishment of baseline performance on a variety of spatial tasks.

Egocentric spatial language uses coordinates in relation to our body to talk about small-scale space ('put the knife on the right of the plate and the fork on the left'), while geocentric spatial language uses geographic coordinates ('put the knife to the east, and the fork to the west'). How do children learn to use geocentric language? And why do geocentric spatial references sound strange in English when they are standard practice in other languages? This book studies child development in Bali, India, Nepal, and Switzerland and explores how children learn to use a geocentric frame both when speaking and performing non-verbal cognitive tasks (such as remembering locations and directions). The authors examine how these skills develop with age, look at the socio-cultural contexts in which the learning takes place, and explore the ecological, cultural, social, and linguistic conditions that favor the use of a geocentric frame of reference.

Spatial cognition is a fundamental aspect of human intelligence, but our understanding of its developmental trajectory across the life span is limited. Here, we applied game-based assessment on mobile devices to engage a large sample from China (N = 216,713) with a wide age range (from under 10 years old to above 60) in multiple participations of a mental rotation task, a typical measure of spatial cognition. We found that spatial ability developed asynchronously with its malleability. Whereas mental rotation performance peaked at the age of 28, with males performing better than females, the effect of training from repeated participation peaked at 18, probably laying the foundation for the development of spatial ability. In contrast, children showed particularly low malleability, and a follow-up experiment revealed that the underdeveloped ability of mirror-image discrimination likely hindered the malleability of spatial cognition during this period. The intermingled relation of ability and malleability illustrates dynamics in the development of spatial cognition, inviting broad research on the development of other cognitive functions.

Spatial cognition plays an essential role in everyday functioning and provides a foundation for successful performance in scientific and technological fields. Reasoning about space involves processing information about distance, angles, and direction. Starting from infancy, children display sensitivity to these spatial properties, although their initial skills are quite limited. Subsequent development during early childhood and through the elementary school years involves gradual improvement in the use of individual frames of reference (i.e., egocentric and allocentric), as well as in the ability to flexibly combine different types of spatial information. Similarly, there is a relatively long progression from the starting points, when infants and young children display sensitivity to distance and form simple spatial categories, to more mature spatial competence when older children and adults integrate distance and categorical information hierarchically. Such developments are associated with both the maturation of specific brain regions and accumulating experience, including interactions with the physical world and the acquisition of cultural tools. In particular, the mastery of symbolic spatial representations, such as maps and models, significantly augments basic spatial capabilities. While growing evidence implicates both biological and experiential factors in the development of spatial cognition, a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that underlie the developmental process requires further investigation of how such factors interact to produce organisms that function competently in their environments. WIREs Cogn Sci 2012, 3:349-362. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1171 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

By looking carefully at the methods, results, and discussions of a variety of studies using different populations, suggestions can be raised and theories synthesized which may add to our understanding of the development of spatial cognition. This chapter addresses three main issues within the brain bases and development of spatial cognition: the rationalist/empiricist question, autonomy, and brain organization. The rationalist/empiricist question focuses on whether innate principles exist which shape the development of a particular domain of cognition. The second issue is that of modularity, or autonomy of various cognitive functions. The third issue is that of brain organization and plasticity for these various functions. Although the behavioral manifestations of the development of spatial cognition was found to be dissociated from linguistic abilities and environmental factors in the Williams children and the blind, cerebral lateralization for some spatial functions was found to be affected by congenital deafness and by the acquisition of a spatial language.